Stargate Thirdspace Version 2
by andrewjameswilliams
Summary: Rewrite of Stargate Thirdspace. In the 26th century a group of Tau'ri ships is sent to investiage a new and strange galaxy, inadvertantly triggering a war that could lead to the obliteration of all sentient life in the universe.
1. Prologue

_**Stargate: Thirdspace**_

_**Prologue**_

**March 2525**

Sitting comfortably in a synthetic leather chair Admiral Jacob Robyns reread the orders that had been issued to his task force in the peace and quiet of his ready room aboard the Tau'ri Federation starship _Achilles._ With the gigantic Proteus-class dreadnought and the rest of his forty-one ship strong task force sitting in geostationary orbit of the industrial colony on Sigma Draconis III – as they had been for the last month – there was little else for him to do.

As he carefully read the orders for the umpteenth time he once again felt some of his old youthful wanderlust – that had led him to join the Tau'ri navy in the first place – stir. The orders were for an escort/protection mission, but an escort/protection mission with a difference as it was the kind that didn't come up very often. A mission that would be ready to get underway within the next hour or two at the most – assuming there were no more delays.

His task force had been selected to escort a cityship to its destination and protect the city and the tens of thousands of people within when the destination was reached and the city successfully alighted on a new world. Within mere hours now the cityship Rivendell would leave the artificial lagoon where she had been constructed and begin a long two week hyperspace journey to a newly discovered galaxy. But a galaxy with a difference as it was no ordinary galaxy but something that until recently had been thought to only be an old, obscure scientific theory. They were going to a dark matter galaxy.

Until very recently the existence of dark matter galaxies had never been conclusively proven – it was only through translations of newly unlocked sections of the Ancient database in Atlantis that their existence had been proven. After making some minor adjustments to sensors they had located the first such galaxy and it was relatively close by roughly halfway between the Milky Way and Ida galaxies. Rivendell was going to that dark galaxy to be the base of operations in exploring it and probing its mysteries as the Ancient database had been even less helpful than normal when it came to the rare galaxies and what went on in them.

Putting the pad containing the orders down Jacob leaned back in his chair in thoughtful silence. While the prospect of being one of the first humans to set foot in a new galaxy – especially one so different from the norm – was enough to fill him with excitement, but at the same time he knew that they should be cautious. Expeditions to newly discovered galaxies were always events that weren't to be embarked upon lightly to often in the past his people had done it in a very ad hoc and disorganised fashion and gotten themselves into trouble and encountered enemies they hadn't really been ready to face – enemies like the Wraith and the Ori. Even when they were cautious going into a new galaxy there was always the possibility of encountering a powerful and hostile spacefaring race, it had happened before after all and such encounters didn't always end favourably for either side. Indeed the last time that had happened two centuries ago it had plunged the Tau'ri as a people into a ten year long bloodbath against the forces of the reptilian Theliax.

Thinking about the new galaxy Jacob hoped they wouldn't encounter anyone with hostile intentions. Still he would be prepared for it if they did have a violent encounter with unfriendly natives – between the thirty three ships in his task force and Rivendell's own defences they would hopefully have the firepower to see off any hostile. There was also another factor at play that would reduce the likelihood of encountering anyone with hostile intentions.

A long range exploration ship, the _Northern Horizon_ if he remembered her name correctly, was already holding position off the edge of the dark matter galaxy and launching repeated robotic probes of the outer edge of the galaxy. They were both looking for a suitable planet for Rivendell to land on once they arrived and for any sign of someone who could potentially be hostile to them. If she found the latter the _Northern Horizon_ had orders from both command and the Senate Exploration and Resource Development Committee to immediately inform the Senate back in the Tau'ri capital city of Avalon on Earth via a high powered subspace burst transmission.

From his orders Jacob knew that the _Northern Horizon_ and her captain Taylor Matheson had orders to join up with Rivendell and his task force when they arrived at the dark matter galaxy. They would drop out of hyperspace at the _Northern Horizon's_ coordinates long enough for the other ship to join formation with them before proceeding to the coordinates of the planet that should have been found for them by that time.

_That is assuming nothing goes wrong,_ Jacob thought. _We know so little about these kinds of galaxies that we can't even be sure if there are planets and stars as we understand the terms. There maybe nowhere we can land and set up a base._ In that instance he knew there was a contingency plan for Rivendell to return to the Milky Way and land on a suitable Tau'ri controlled or allied world. The bulk of his task force would join her while some stayed behind with the _Northern Horizon_ and began a slower exploration of the galaxy the old fashioned way.

A bleep from his desk communications console drew him out of his thoughts with a jolt. "Main bridge to Admiral Robyns," Captain Josephine Owens said as a holographic screen showing her face appeared in front of him.

"Yes captain?" Jacob asked.

"Sir we've just received a notification from Rivendell," Josephine replied. "They report that the last of the expedition members and their families have arrived and are being settled in their quarters. Governor Shepherd also indicates that they are almost finished taking on supplies and will be ready to launch inside of thirty minutes."

"Very good, signal the task force to begin powering up for departure," Jacob ordered. "As soon as Rivendell reaches orbit all ships are to assume escort formation Gamma Two around her."

"Aye sir," Josephine acknowledged before signing off to carry out the orders. The holographic screen vanished into nothingness with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble leaving Jacob alone in his ready room once again.

_Almost time to go,_ Jacob thought as he turned his attention back to his electronic paperwork, he had a great deal to do – commanding a task force of forty one capital warships and the twenty eight thousand eight hundred men and women in said force was an enormous responsibility and one that generated a considerable amount of paperwork. Paperwork that in his experience never seemed to end as it seemed like no sooner than he finished one pile then another would seemingly materialise out of subspace for him to do. _Join the navy and see the universe, that's what the ads on the Starnet say, _he thought with a wry smile, _pity they don't tell you about the bureaucratic make work that comes with the adventure._

Given the amount of work he had to do Jacob knew that the time between now and departure would fly by, however he had no intention of not being on the flag bridge when the fleet set out for its destination. A quick command to the desk console with one hand set a fifteen minute alarm while his other hand picked up a readiness report from Captain McKenzie of the _Jutland_ and he began the tedious but necessary task of reading through it.

* * *

**Stargate Operations/Central Control**

**Rivendell, Twenty Minutes Later**

Governor Alison Shepherd looked over from holographic displays floating above her desk when she heard the sound of someone clearing there throat. One of the control room staff stood in the doorway to her office and for a moment she struggled to connect the youthful face to a name, she still hadn't learned the names of all the control room staff. But then again she did have a lot of different things to worry about as the time for departure drew ever closer.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Governor our final checks have been completed," the young man – Jones she now recalled his name to be – replied.

"And," Alison asked bracing herself for the possibility that Rivendell might not be ready for departure, that something had gone wrong with one of the many hundreds of systems the city needed to function not just as a city but as a gigantic spacecraft capable of intergalactic travel. She doubted anything major had gone wrong – the cities A.I Arwen would have immediately informed her if it had – but it was always a possibility. Cityships were the most complex and advanced machines that the Tau'ri knew how to build – even with everything they'd learned from the Ancient database in Atlantis over the last five hundred years, ships like Rivendell pushed there technological abilities to the limit. Compared to building a cityship things like forging new stargates and making zero point modules were child's play.

"All systems read as fully operational ma'am," Jones replied grinning. "All three Zed-PM's are plugged into the cities energy grid and providing power. Secondary power generators are engaged and standing by to compensate for any shortfall. Life support systems are ready to engage as are the shields, sublight drives and the hyperdrive."

"Then we're ready to launch?"

Jones nodded. "We're as ready as we will ever be," he said.

Alison grinned. "Then lets get this show on the road," she answered before tapping a command into her terminal dismissing all the holographic display screens and standing up. With Jones preceding her Alison made the short journey across the mezzanine to the cities main control room.

Alison took a moment to look at all the control room staff, taking in their eager, expectant faces. Though her people were professionals she could see the excitement in there posture, they were as eager as she was to begin their mission. A mission that would if successful massive increase their knowledge of both the universe in general and dark matter galaxies in particular. The latter was so mysterious to them; even the Ancients hadn't appeared to know much about the enigmatic galaxies at least if the lack of any real information on them in the Ancient database in Atlantis was anything to go by.

"Alright people listen up. The time we've been working towards for the last year and a half has finally arrived," she said. "We're ready, ready to begin our mission to expand our knowledge of the universe. With luck once this mission is concluded we will have discovered a whole new kind of space for humanity to explore and possibly colonise.

"The city is ready, so are we and so is our escort group," she continued with a wry smile knowing how happy Admiral Robyns would be to be able to finally be ready to get their mission underway. In all the preparation work that had gone on over the last few weeks and months she'd met him a number of times and gotten to know him quite well. She knew him well enough to see that behind the stiff military façade was a man with an incessant curiosity about the universe around them. His service record also attested to that desire to know about the universe as she recalled that for much of his career he'd served on exploration ships with only a handful of tours on warships before he'd reached commander.

"So let us begin," she finished. "Communications contact the shipyard operations centre and request departure clearance."

"Yes ma'am," the officer at the console in question answered and with a single mental command relayed the request to the shipyards control room. Almost immediately a response came in from shipyard control. "We've been cleared to disengage from the shipyard and move up into orbit."

"Then lets get going then," Alison said. "Disengage the clamps holding us to the shipyard lagoon. Then begin departure sequence."

"Yes ma'am," came the response from a number of locations around the control room. A moment later an alert sounded throughout the city, the distorted and discordant noise of the Ancient-style alarm demanding attention.

"Departure sequence initiated," Arwen's voice said over the citywide PA system. "All personnel secure for departure. Sublight engine start in sixty seconds."

"Inertial dampeners powered and engaged," one of the staff reported. "Anti-gravity wave generators powering, sublight drives active."

"Raising fortress shield, all exterior doors and windows closed and sealed," another added.

"Sublight drive start in thirty seconds," Arwen said calmly, mighty engines set into the piers of the city greedily hoarding power in preparation for task ahead. The whole of the six and a half kilometre wide cityship began to rumble gently, rising on the gentle thrust of the secondary engines and resting on the very surface of the water.

"Sublight drive activation in five, four, three-" The gentle rumble transitioned into a furious shaking, and for a moment it seemed the city might shake itself apart.

"-two, one. Firing." The shaking ceased for the briefest of moments, a moment of calm in the eye of the storm. Then a titanic _whoomph_ seemed to come straight up through the floor and with a faint sensation reminiscent of an old fashioned manual lift the city began a slow but steady rise into the sky.

* * *

To the shipyard workers who'd laboured so long to build and outfit Rivendell the view of her launch was spectacular. Standing on various observation decks on the waterfront they watched as the city sat in her lagoon surrounded by the translucent silver-white bubble of its main shield.

For a moment the city remained stationary then small plumes of steam began to appear all around the perimeter of the shield. The steam grew in intensity, becoming hissing jets of boiling water as the city began to rise. Slowly at first then with ever increasing speed the city moved inexorably upwards, soaring into the sky. Sunlight reflected off the shield gave the protective dome a shimmering quality, and the polished metal and crystal of the city towers made it seem to glow in the yellow-orange light of the K0 type sun. A thick mist descended from the base of the rising city as water as the shield was made permeable to the water that sat between the piers. As the sheet of water fell the engines turned it into mist which began a long descent to the surface below. Spectacular rainbows rippled in the falling mist turning the warm water into a riot of glorious colour.

Still the city continued to rise, ascending towards the stars. The last of the trapped water left the city shield and the protective barrier again became fully impermeable and trapped a thick bubble of breathable atmosphere around the gleaming towers. At thirty thousand feet above the surface of the planet the cities massive gravitic sublight engines went to full power, the powerful anti-gravity wave providing the final boost to the city. A rippling shockwave of air and distorted gravity blasted out from the base of the city, tearing apart the lazy clouds surrounding it as the city suddenly shot spaceward at incredible speed, becoming rapidly smaller to the cheering observers below.

The atmosphere thinned and darkened as the great spacecraft passed the majority of the atmosphere and through into space, the cities lights all activating and making it look like a miniature galaxy itself. Finally Rivendell broke free of the final layers of Sigma Draconis III's atmosphere and embraced the void. Immediately her ascent began to slow and eventually she came to a halt, in defiance of gravity as the planet lazily continued its spin beneath her.

* * *

"We have achieved altitude, governor," one of the control room staff reported, his voice raising a cheer from all the staff, the security marines guarding the control room and those city residents who'd gathered on the floor of Stargate Operations for the launch.

"Very good," Alison replied smiling and inwardly feeling like joining in with the celebrations at the successful launch. With some small effort she kept herself focused on the task at hand – there would be time to break open a bottle of champagne and celebrate the successful launch later. "Power the hyperdrive," Alison ordered. "Set a course for the rendezvous point with the _Northern Horizon._ Sensors, where are our escorts?"

"Admiral Robyns task force is approaching at maximum safe orbital velocity, ma'am," the young woman at the sensor station replied.

"Governor we're being hailed by the _Achilles_," communications added. "Admiral Robyns says his ships are preparing to move into escort position around us. He would like to know our status."

"Advise him that we are powering up our hyperdrive and will be ready to get underway as soon as he is," Alison instructed.

"Yes ma'am." After a moment the comm. chirped again. "The _Achilles _has acknowledged our transmission and request we link our navigational systems to theirs so the whole fleet can depart together."

"Arwen, set up a link with the _Achilles_ navigational computer," Alison ordered which prompted the holographic avatar of the cities A.I to materialise beside her. Like all A.I's Arwen had been permitted to choose the form her avatar appeared in and had chosen an appearance that matched her namesake. She appeared as a classic elfin princess, beautiful and ageless with porcelain doll features, jet black hair and finely pointed ears while being dressed in a long flowing robe of intricate weave and laced through with runic symbols.

"Setting up the link now, Governor," Arwen replied with a smile even as a part of her vast mind negotiated with the main computer on the _Achilles_ and was permitted through its adaptive firewalls and given a link to the dreadnought's navigational control systems. "Link established."

"Excellent," Alison replied turning to look at the main holographic systems display plate at the back of the control room. Currently it showed a sensor grid of the space immediately around the city with light blue chevrons representing the bulk of Admiral Robyns' destroyers and cruisers moving into escort formation around the blue snowflake symbol that represented the city. The larger chevron representing the _Achilles_ moved around the city taking up station ahead of them with a pair of cruisers flanking her in mutual support formation. In practically no time at all the sensor display confirmed that Rivendell was floating in the centre of a defensive sphere of warships with the mighty dreadnought _Achilles_ and her supporting cruisers holding position directly above the cities main spire.

"Governor, I'm monitoring a transmission from orbital control to the _Achilles,_" Arwen reported then the avatar smiled. "We're being given clearance for departure: all civilian traffic has been cleared from our path. We can leave whenever Admiral Robyns gives the order."

"Then it's Admiral Robyns call now," Alison replied.

"Technically that would be true, Governor Shepherd," Admiral Robyns voice abruptly said from behind her making Alison jump and spin around. To find herself face to face with a life size, three dimensional holographic projection of the admiral.

"I'm sorry to startle you," Robyns said and Alison smiled back to say it was alright. "But I thought it would be fitting if you were the one to give the order to get underway."

Alison's smile widened, she was deeply touched by the ceremonial significance of Admiral Robyns letting her give the order to get underway. "That's very good of you," she said before straightening up and putting as much of the authority that had been vested in her as she could in her tone as she spoke again.

"The word is given, Admiral," she said. "Take us to the _Northern Horizon._"

Admiral Robyns straitened to attention. "Aye ma'am," he said formally before looking over at someone else on his flag bridge, someone that Alison naturally couldn't see, and giving a small nod before he turned back to her. He gave one final smile then his hologram rippled with rainbow light and vanished as the holographic transmission from the _Achilles_ was closed down from the dreadnoughts side.

Alison stared at the point where the hologram had been for a moment, before moving forward to the front of the control room to look down at the floor of Stargate Operations. As she walked a faint humming whine began to be heard throughout the city as the great spacecraft's massive hyperdrive system reached full power.

* * *

For a few moments the sphere of ships remained stationary in space above Sigma Draconis III, the light of the star playing off both the shields of the cityship and the polished silver-grey hulls of the warships making them glow like angels. Then with a perfect coordination that would have made any professional ballet troop in the universe green with envy they began moving, accelerating out of orbit.

For several seconds the massive group of ships continued driving into open space leaving the planet behind them. There hyperdrives came to full strength and under careful direction from the flagship activated – all the subspace fields meshing together seamlessly before applying tremendous pressure to the very structure of space itself.

For a millisecond the universe resisted the inconceivable pressure but then the quantum folds that separated normal space and subspace parted. A truly gargantuan hyperspace window burst into existence with a silent roar of power, spilling subspace energy into normal space as a brilliant greenish-white light. The fleet and cityship paused for a moment before the monstrous tear in space-time they'd created as if in awe of there accomplishment, before in perfect unison leaping forward and vanishing into the window and hyperspace.

No longer being held open by the combined power of the fleet's hyperdrives the energy vortex of the window folded in upon itself before vanishing returning the state of local space time to normal. Even as it closed its makers were already gone from the Sigma Draconis system – driving through hyperspace towards the distant explorer ship _Northern Horizon_ at speeds millions of times that of light.

The Tau'ri mission to the dark matter galaxy had begun.


	2. Chapter 01

_**Stargate Thirdspace**_

_**Chapter One**_

_The scout cruiser floated silent as a ghost amid the cloud of dust form dark matter, gas and rock that marked the outer border of the Sinhindrea's domain. The cruiser and the legion of Sinhindrea hunters aboard it had been on station for weeks now, keeping there sensors pointed outwards, penetrating the perimeter nebulous clouds and gazing into the great void between galaxies._

_The reason for there vigil hung – almost invisible against the backdrop of space – a thousand light years out into the void. A single alien vessel hung there, a vessel that for weeks now had been launching probe after probe into the Sinhindrea's domain – indeed it was only through backtracking the hyperspace trajectories of the probes that they knew the ship was there at all – though the purpose of the probing was not fully known. The High Lords believed that the inferiors crewing the vessel were surveying the largely uninhabited outer regions in preparation for an incursion._

_An incursion into their domain was not something the Sinhindrea could allow, the very thought of inferiors desecrating there sacred space with there foul presence was absolutely intolerable. When the inferiors came the Sinhindrea were determined to be ready for them, ready to make them understand that coming here would mean challenging they who were power beyond the comprehension of lesser minds._

_New sensor readings caught the attention of the cruisers crew. An extremely large hyperspace trace – the kind that could only be produced by a large number of ships travelling in close formation – was approaching the inferior's vessel. Was the main force of inferiors coming at last?_

_Excited at the prospect that there long vigil could soon be over the junior Hunt Master in command of the scout cruiser used his cybernetic link with the ships systems to send a message to the nearest fleet base. A message informing the patiently waiting border defence fleet of the development so they could prepare to intercept should the inferiors make a move towards the Sinhindrea's domain, before settling back to wait and resume watching. _

_Like the rest of his crew the Hunt Master hoped the inferiors made a move soon, he had grown weary of watching and waiting. It would be nice to bring the hunt to a successful conclusion, especially if in there inevitable victory they sowed the seeds of an even greater hunt in the future. Quietly salivating – as much as was possible for an aquatic species to salivate anyway – at the prospect of bountiful hunts in the future the Master calmed his crew and turned his full attention back to the sensors, resuming the long watch._

* * *

**TFS Achilles**

Admiral Jacob Robyns knew there was an excited spring in his step as he stepped onto the flag bridge of the _Achilles_, but he didn't care. He didn't mind his crew seeing his own excitement at the thought that the first phase of their mission was nearly completed. He knew they shared it as the journey from Sigma Draconis to here had been boring for everyone involved.

After two long weeks of hyperspace travel – the need to match speeds with the slower Rivendell having kept the warships from travelling at anywhere near maximum velocity – they were finally coming up on the rendezvous point with the _Northern Horizon._ In mere moments the cityship and the forty one warships assigned to escort and protect her would drop back into normal space and meet up with the _Northern Horizon_.

After the exploration ship joined up with the fleet they would be able to proceed with the next phase of the mission – assuming of course that the probes the exploration ship had been launching had discovered an appropriate landing site for Rivendell. Jacob hoped they had as he wasn't sure he would be able to take the crushing disappointment of having to take Rivendell back home if they hadn't. He didn't want to think of the massive hit that moral throughout his task force would take if the worst happened and they had to just turn around and take the city home.

Shaking off his thoughts he turned his attention to the here and now. "Status report," he ordered as he moved across the flag bridge to the command chair.

"We're approaching the _Northern Horizon's_ last reported position sir," the young lieutenant at navigation reported, seeing the same information both on her consoles holoscreen and in her mind that her counterpart would be seeing on the command bridge "normal space reversion in one minute."

"Understood," Jacob replied as he settled down into his chair. Almost immediately the command datastream opened into the back of his awareness and leaning back in the chair he partially immersed himself in the flow of information and sensed the other bridge staff connected to the datastream even as he pulled up a general ship and fleet status update. Translucent blue characters in the familiar blocky language of the Ancients – which they used themselves for written communication as it was better at conveying various scientific and higher dimensional concepts than other languages save the rune-like language of the Asgard – suddenly seemed to overlay his vision, allowing him to quickly and efficiently get fully up to date with the state of not just the state of his mighty Proteus-class flagship but the entire fleet.

It took only a few moments to review the information and he was pleased to note that there were no problems with Rivendell or any of his ships. All ships were fully operational and the cityship especially was holding up well to the stresses of long term hyperspace travel. The data feed from Arwen to the main computer of the _Achilles_ indicated that the city's ZPM power was holding steady at 80% with the network of neutrino-ion generators added to the cityship design as a secondary power source taking over more of the 6.5 kilometre wide spacecrafts colossal power demands as the zero point modules were slowly but steadily drained. It was good to see that Rivendell was weathering the passage so well, moving something of its size and mass through hyperspace was never easy and cityships were such complex machines that there was always a possibility – albeit remote – that something would go wrong especially on such a long hyperspace flight as it was the time when the cities systems were put under the most strain.

Withdrawing from the datastream – allowing it to fade into the back of his thoughts – Jacob blinked as the translucent characters disappeared from in front of his eyes. He turned his attention to the massive high resolution holoscreens at the front of the flag bridge even as a faint change in the sound of the ships hyperdrive registered with him. A change that he was infinitely familiar with as it indicated that the drive was starting to power down, slowing the ship down ready for reversion to normal space.

"Normal space reversion in twenty seconds," navigation reported and Jacob straightened in his chair and prepared himself for the sudden deceleration forces that the ship would soon be subjected to. Deceleration forces that the inertial dampeners were never quite able to fully dissipate.

"Reversion in ten seconds… nine… eight…" _Here we go,_ Jacob thought as the countdown continued, "five… four… three… two… one initiating reversion to normal space."

Jacob nodded as a jolt abruptly rippled through the whole four kilometre length of the _Achilles_ just as the luminous blue tunnel of hyperspace visible on the front screens flashed brilliantly then dissolved into nothingness. For a moment there was nothing visible beyond a multicoloured blur of optical distortion as the whole fleet was spat out of subspace back into normal space at a sizeable fraction of the speed of light. Gravitic sublight engines engaged instantly and almost immediately overpowered the effects of hyperspace inertia, dumping the fleets speed down to the point where all the warships and the giant cityship were at a dead halt in space.

The forward screens cleared showing the galaxy spangled infinite darkness of intergalactic space. The dark matter galaxy was directly ahead of the fleet, faintly visible as a dark purple-grey-black smudge – like space itself was bruised – against the outermost edge of the distant sea of light that was the Asgard home galaxy of Ida. Seeing the dark matter galaxy with his own eyes suddenly sent a chill down Jacob's spine while something inside him screamed that it was a dark place, a place of evil and corruption that it would be best to stay well clear of. Angrily Jacob pushed the sudden sense of foreboding down and instead focused on what needed to happen next.

"Fleet status," he ordered.

"Rivendell and all fleet ships have successfully reverted to normal space sir," one of the sensor techs reported, "all ships are maintaining optimal separation while still being in defensive formation around Rivendell. Short range scanners have detected the _Northern Horizon_ sir, there holding position on a bearing of two six one mark one, six nine. Distance point six five AU."

"Show me," Jacob instructed even as a profound sense of relief fell upon him that all his ships and Rivendell had transited to normal space safely. With so many ships travelling so close together through hyperspace there was always a risk – albeit an incredibly small one – of collisions upon reversion to normal space.

The screens shimmered once drawing his attention and brought in an automatically enhanced image of the _Northern Horizon_ as she hung in the infinity. The shape of the exploration ship was familiar and comforting as he'd spent much of his career on one or another – a sleek, flat shape vaguely reminiscent of a more angular version of a manta ray from Earth's oceans. From a distance the ships gleaming silver-white hull appeared smooth and seamless when Jacob knew it wasn't as it would be covered with sensor panels, small communications arrays and domes, not to mention the hatches for the ships virtual armada of small craft and which concealed the retractable plasma pulse cannon turrets and drone weapon launching systems of the exploration ships defensive weapons array. From a distance she was a beautiful ship to look at and didn't look at all threatening unlike the vaguely knife-like hull forms of his warships and the large and very visible weapons arrays they mounted.

At that moment one of the comm. stations chimed softly for attention. "Admiral we're being hailed," the officer on duty at the station reported, "its the _Northern Horizon_, Captain Matheson is requesting holographic contact. Rivendell is also hailing us Governor Shepherd wishes to be brought in on any discussion."

"Very well put them both through," Jacob instructed standing up from his command chair for a moment. Though he could holographically communicate just as easily from a sitting position he preferred to stand during such contacts, most people in his experience did. Immediately ahead of him two patches of air momentarily glowed with a rainbow light similar to the effect of a transporter beam and distorted in the shape of two human bodies before solidifying into two holographic projections that looked as real to Jacob as if they were actually physically standing in front of him.

"Admiral Robyns, Governor Shepherd, welcome to the arse end on nowhere I trust you had a pleasant journey," Captain Taylor Matheson said in greeting while grinning broadly showing pearly white teeth that contrasted nicely with his chocolate brown skin and his stance indicated a faintly irrelevant, flippant air that was something of a tradition in some quarters of the Tau'ri navy and which dated back to the old Stargate Command and officers such as the legendary General Jack O'Neill.

Jacob chuckled and a glace at Alison Shepherds hologram also showed she was choking back laughter. "Pleasure to be here, Captain," he answered looking at the other man and fighting back his own grin. "And yes we did have a good flight, long and boring but good."

"Glad to hear it," Matheson replied before turning to business. "We have sent repeated probes into the dark matter galaxy looking for an appropriate landing site for Rivendell."

"Have you found anything?" Jacob asked.

"We have. There is a planet four hundred and seventy-five light years inside the galaxy orbiting a G-type star. The planet is habitable but only barely as it's at the far edge of the liquid water zone – average temperature at the equator is only fourteen degree's centigrade, anything above or below the tropics is virtually uninhabitable without thermal suits. The planet does have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and it's just warm enough for liquid oceans though icebergs have been observed to drift from the largely frozen northern and southern seas to the equatorial regions before melting."

"That's not ideal," Alison commented. "It's only barely habitable. It will do though as if we're going to stay long term terraforming it will not be that difficult."

"I know it's not ideal but it's all we could find," Matheson replied. "There is somekind of interference from so much dark matter being present in the galaxy, its scrambled our probe sensors. All the probes we've sent in haven't been able to see more than a hundred to a hundred and fifty light years in any direction depending on the dark matter concentration. We've tried daisy chaining them and it's not helped that much though we wouldn't have found the planet in question if we hadn't."

"Will it affect our ship based sensors the same way?" Jacob asked with a concerned frown. He didn't particularly like the idea of going in somewhere where the fleet could be basically blind and wouldn't see a threat until literally the last minute.

Matheson nodded. "It will," he admitted. "However our ship based sensors, not to mention Rivendell's sensors, have a lot more power and resolution than anything that can be mounted on a probe. The interference shouldn't be that bad, scientists here believe it will cut our long range scan radius in half they're working with our A.I Pearl to develop a program that will filter out the worst of the interference but its slow going."

"Half of normal range," Jacob replied feeling a little happier, half normal range would mean they wouldn't be completely blind – they'd still be able to detect incoming ships over a distance of two hundred and fifty light years and five thousand light years in case of Rivendell's main sensor array. "It's better than nothing. Have the scientists given you any idea how long it will take for them to come up with the filtering program, captain?"

Matheson shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said. "The interference affects subspace in away we have never seen before."

Alison frowned and entered the conversation again. "I'll ask Arwen to look in our copy of the Ancient database, see if the Ancients had information on this interference and how to counter it," she said. "They obviously did know about these kinds of galaxies even if they were even more maddeningly tight lipped about them than normal. They're bound to have encountered this sensor interference and developed a counter."

"Hopefully they filed it properly," Matheson said with a grin knowing how the Ancients had apparently been absolutely hopeless at three things, those being naming things, combat of all kinds and filing things properly.

"Knowing the Ancients I wouldn't bet on it," Alison replied a look of momentary frustration – which was understandable to anyone who ever tried to get information out of the overly complex, extremely convoluted and totally illogical thing the Ancients called a database – appearing on her face. After a moment she pushed it aside and focused on more immediate concerns. "So what do we do now," she asked. "Do we float here in the void until the filtration program is developed? Or do we continue to the planet Captain Matheson has found?"

"I see no real reason why we shouldn't continue as planned," Jacob replied. "While the interference is a matter of some concern we would still be able to detect a threat quick enough that we'll be able to respond to it even with our long distance scanning range cut in half.

"In addition once Rivendell has landed I could redeploy some of my ships into sentry positions which would allow us to extend our range back towards the norm even if we don't come up with a counter to the interference," he continued. "So no I don't see a reason why we cannot continue with our mission as planned."

"I agree there is nothing preventing us continuing with our mission," Matheson added in agreement more than eager to move into the dark matter galaxy and really get there mission started. It had been frustrating to wait here in the void when the probe scans had already hinted at the mysteries the dark matter galaxy a few thousand light years away contained. Mysteries that had had the explorer/scientist in him eager to get going and frustrated by being held back by the part of him that was a soldier obeying his orders.

Alison frowned and her hologram looked down at the polished marble-effect metal deck of the _Achilles_ flag bridge for a moment deep in thought. As the governor of Rivendell the final say on if they took the cityship into the dark matter galaxy was hers and hers alone.

She had to admit that the fact that there sensors would be partially clouded did worry her, not because of the interference but because of the precedent it set. If the sheer abundance of dark matter was affecting there sensors this way then what else could it affect? Would it have any other unforeseen effects on there technology? Had the Ancients not gone into the galaxy because of the negative effects its environment had on their technology? There was no way to know for certain, not without going in there.

After moments more thought she sighed and looked up. "Alright gentlemen we'll press on," she said. "I do admit that I do have a concern that the quantities of dark matter could have negative side effects on our technology beyond clouding our long range scanners."

"There is no need to worry governor," Matheson said reassuringly. "When we first noticed the sensor interference I had our probes called back and subjected to a very thorough examination and analysis. I admit I shared your concern about the environment being detrimental to our technology – it wouldn't be the first time after all that the Ancients conveniently forgot to put that information in the database. The analysis showed that hardware wise there was nothing wrong with the probe and while there was some dark matter contamination on the hull and sensor panels it wasn't causing any observable hardware problems. The scanner problem is software based not hardware."

"That's a relief," Alison replied with another sigh, a relieved one this time. "Very well then gentlemen we're ready to go when you are."

"Excellent," Jacob said. "Captain Matheson, transmit the coordinates of the planet you found to the rest of the fleet then move your ship into formation with us. I'll have a few destroyers clear a space for you on Rivendell's ventral side."

"Aye sir," Matheson replied.

"Governor please make sure everyone on Rivendell is ready to resume flight."

"We're ready over here admiral don't worry about us," Alison replied.

"Good. Okay then people lets do this," Jacob answered with a smile prompting Alison and Matheson to do the same before there holograms rippled with rainbow light and disappeared as the communications links were closed down. He returned to his command chair before giving his next order, even as part of his mind noted the appearance of new information in the command datastream – the destination coordinates being transmitted from Pearl the A.I on the _Northern Horizon_ to the navigational systems of the whole fleet.

"Communications instruct destroyer squadron three to break formation and move towards the _Northern Horizon_ and assume escort formation alpha around her. Also instruct destroyer squadron four and the _Concordia_ to clear an appropriate place in the formation for the _Northern Horizon_ and her escort on Rivendell's ventral side."

"Aye sir."

* * *

Silent as ghosts in the vacuum of space and with the effortless grace of the predators that they were the four ships of destroyer squadron three broke away from the spherical defensive formation around Rivendell and began advancing towards the distant _Northern Horizon_ even as the larger exploration vessel powered up its sublight drive and moved to meet up with them. Simultaneously behind them the space around Rivendell's ventral side became a beehive of activity as destroyers and cruisers adjusted there positions in the defensive formation opening a gap that the exploration ship would just be able to slip into.

The destroyers of squadron three headed by the _Akagi_ approached rendezvous with the explorer and as they crossed a specific point in space the ships began to split apart. There normal mutual support formation blossoming open like a flower embracing the dawning of a new day. In an impressively synchronised display the destroyers deployed into a diamond shaped formation around the _Northern Horizon_ with one taking up position directly above her, another directly below and one each off the flanks of the much larger vessel, before all four turned gracefully in there own lengths so there bows matched the bearing of the bigger ships bow, all the while matching there speed with the explorers.

With a precision that appeared effortless – but which was in reality a complicated ballet – the explorer and her new escort moved into formation with Rivendell – taking up position beneath her so the great snowflake shadow of the cityship obscured the distant weak light of the stars in neighbouring galaxies.

Once the modified formation was firmly established the cityship and her expanded escort once again powered up there hyperdrives. As most of them had done back at Sigma Draconis two weeks before they combined the powerful subspace fields produced by the mighty engines applying tremendous pressure to a single point in space-time. For a moment the fabric of space-time resisted before the barrier between normal space and the realm of subspace known as hyperspace broke down and a gargantuan hyperspace window burst into existence with a blast of aquamarine light and a silent roar of raw power.

For a few moments the fleet remained stationary and had anyone been watching they might have gotten both hints of awe at the monster they'd created and a sense of muscular power gathering in the ships. Then with a breathtaking suddenness and a blur of optical distortion from the speeds involved the whole fleet shot forward in unison, vanishing into the swirling vortex of light, hawking radiation and subspace energies that was the hyperspace window. With the ships gone and no longer being held open by the combined subspace fields the glowing rent in the space-time continuum shrunk and vanished as if it had never been present at all returning total inactivity to the great void between galaxies.

* * *

_The scout cruiser observed the massive group of inferior's ships entering hyperspace on a vector that would take them to an uninhabited system not far from one of the largest of the Sinhindrea's outlying settlements. _

_The Hunt Master commanding the cruiser was puzzled by the inferiors apparent choice of destination – even though he wasn't particularly surprised as a number of the aliens probes had swept the system repeatedly for the last week or so – as while there was a planet in the liquid water zone in the system it wasn't what the Sinhindrea would consider habitable. Its waters were too cold to sustain even there hearty kind, even with all the technology they had available to them to try and make things more bearable. The junior Hunt Master couldn't help but wonder if the new inferior's were a cold adapted species – if they were then the planet would be perfect for them._

_After a moment the Hunt Master dismissed his thoughts. Being cold adapted or not the inferiors were still that, inferiors and invaders. Invaders who would soon be taught the age old lesson that so many species had learnt since his kind had once more reached the stars after the Great Cataclysm so long ago. The lesson that the Sinhindrea were power beyond comprehension, hunger beyond understanding, right before they were destroyed. Knowing his duty the Hunt Master sent an advisory to the High Lords and the waiting fleet advising them of the alien's precise vector and estimated arrival time. Then through the cyber link with the ship directed his crew to set course for the system themselves and to engage the hyperdrive at maximum speed. With a little luck they would reach the system before the inferiors, after their long vigil it would be nice to be the first ones to teach the inferiors the age old lesson right before consuming them. To a soul his crew agreed and hurriedly prepared the ship for its journey._

_Moments later the scout cruiser slipped out of the nebula that had concealed its presence from the alien scanners and entered hyperspace on an intercept course with the aliens. The crew of hunters on board eager for action against the new inferiors who'd dared enter the sacred space of the Sinhindrea._

* * *

**Ten Minutes Later**

The icy world long ignored and dismissed as useless and uninhabitable by the sinister denizens of its galaxy continued its lonely, two and a half Terran year orbit of its parent star. From orbit it resembled a white and blue marble with the occasional flash of grey where rocky mountains and volcanoes broke through the thick blanket of ice and snow that dominated the bulk of its surface. Cold blue-grey seas provided little contrast to the inhospitable frozen landmasses.

Suddenly in an orbit high above the planets northern polar region a purple-blue hyperspace window burst into existence. Emerging from the glowing tear in space-time was a ship that for a moment was invisible beyond the optical distortion of hyperspace inertia. The distortion faded revealing a ship that would give almost anyone who saw it nightmares. It was long and dark, two long blackish-grey gun barrel-like structures projected from a V-shaped structure that itself merged into a equally black-grey ring structure that bisected a glowing orb of purple-blue light, at the rear of the ring two small opening glowed with light propelling the menacing ship along through space.

Without fanfare the Sinhindrea scout cruiser manoeuvred into position in the centre of the magnetic vortex created by the planets pole. Here its stealth systems coupled with the natural interference of the fluctuating ambient magnetic fields would render it invisible to its prey until it was far to late for them to escape. The cruiser settled into position and began a slow preparation of its weapons systems while it waited in orbit for its prey to show up.

It didn't have to wait long.

One hundred thousand kilometres beyond the planets orbit space abruptly warped and distorted as it was suddenly subjected to a tremendous force from within. The folds of space-time parted and a truly massive hyperspace window burst into existence. A millisecond later the forty-three ships of the Tau'ri sent to the dark matter galaxy emerged from the window there outlines blurred and indistinct as they fought against the effects of hyperspace inertia. After a moment the distortion faded away as the fleet dropped to a low sublight speed before coming to a virtual dead halt in space with the planet right in there sights, there only movement now beyond a slow forward drift towards the planet in question.

For a few moments nothing more happened then small dots began to separate both from the dreadnought _Achilles, _the _Northern Horizon_ and the eight cruisers with the fleet as they began deploying remotely operated drone fighters from there hanger bays. Within moments the small but well armed fighters spread out from there parent ships and surrounded Rivendell and the rest of the fleet, establishing a standard combat space patrol around them.

* * *

**Flag Bridge**

**TFS Achilles**

Sitting comfortably in his command chair Admiral Jacob Robyns frowned slightly as his light brown eyes took there first look at the interior of the dark matter galaxy and the planet that would be the fleets home base for the foreseeable future. The planet looked the same as planets always did, though he had to admit that the grey-blue oceans and endless expanses of white snow and ice that dominated the landmasses made it look distinctly unpleasant. _If we're going to stay here long term we either need to find another planet to land Rivendell on or terraform this one more to our liking,_ he thought.

It was the space the planet hung in though that really caught his attention as it was completely unlike anything he had ever seen before. There was no sea of stars standing out starkly against the endless black ocean of space, no multicoloured ribbons of nebulae, no this place was very different. Everywhere there seemed to be nothing but dark rolling cloud. It was all pervasive, overbearing in its sheer vastness. The light of the systems sun and the lights shinning from the view ports of his ships and the virtual sea of light from the cityship illuminated the dark rolling cloud around them, making parts of it glow with different shades of red, blue or purple light, though the bulk of the space around them remained a black or dark grey mass. Faintly in the distance almost completely lost in distance Jacob could faintly see other area of the cloud glowing with different colours but they were few and far between. All in all this space was strange and very, very alien.

"What a depressing place," someone on the flag bridge commented and Jacob didn't feel like disciplining the speaker for talking when not addressed or when there was nothing to report. He sort of agreed with the anonymous crewman – the lack of visible stars or nebulae in the rolling cloud coupled with its odd luminescence in multiple places was kind of depressing when you thought about it.

"It is kind of," he agreed aloud surprising the flag bridge crew that he wasn't speaking to discipline the crewman. "Hopefully we'll get used to it or this is going to be a very long deployment. Sensors scan the planet for a suitable landing site for Rivendell and anything else on the surface of interest."

"Aye sir," the senior sensor tech replied before quietly reissuing the order to his subordinates on both the flag and command bridges. Almost immediately invisible beams of subspace energy reached out not just from the _Achilles_ but the rest of the fleet as they began to search for both an appropriate landing site for the giant cityship and any valuable resources on the planet. Resources that would justify the costs in time and energy it would take to transform the barren, frozen world into a green paradise suitable for permanent human habitation.

A soft crystalline sounding bleep from one of the communications terminals broke the efficient silence that had descended on the flag bridge. "Admiral we're being hailed by the destroyer _Griffin's Wing_," the tech manning the console reported. "They've detected an anomaly in the northern polar region of the planet. However they are unable to ID it due to magnetic interference."

Jacob frowned slightly. "Check with the _Northern Horizon_," he ordered. "See if the probes sent into this system spotted the anomaly in the past."

"Aye sir," the technician replied before with a thought establishing a link with Pearl the A.I of the _Northern Horizon_ and asking her to check the probe data and compare it to the sensor readings from the _Griffin's Wing_. After a moment Pearl gave a surprising but not completely unexpected response. "Admiral Pearl reports that there was no anomaly at the northern polar region in any of the probe scans of the planet or the system."

"Hmm maybe the probes of this system has attracted the attention of some locals," Jacob thought aloud. "Communications contact the _Northern Horizon_ and destroyer squadron three; have them move to investigate the anomaly. If it's a ship have them try to establish contact. All other ships hold position and stop planetary scans until the anomaly is investigated."

"Aye sir."

As the communications officers relayed his instructions to the rest of the fleet Jacob leaned back in the command chair. Ignoring the command datastream for now he thought about the anomaly that a sharp eyed sensor tech on the _Griffin's Wing_ had spotted and the fact that it hadn't been spotted before now by one of the recon probes launched by the _Northern Horizon_. He was convinced that it had to be a ship, it was the only thing that made sense as short range high resolution scans were so far completely unaffected by the dark matter interference. But if it was a ship sent by some local species to investigate the probe flights why were they trying to hide?

_Maybe our numbers have them frightened,_ he thought knowing that the sight of forty-three Tau'ri starships one of them a 6.5 kilometre wide flying city could come across as very intimidating even though the fleet was tiny by Tau'ri standards. Any alien denizens of this galaxy wouldn't know them, wouldn't know that they were a generally peaceful people who would only resort to violence if attacked first. All they would see would be forty-one heavily armed and armoured vessels that were clearly warships, warships that could potentially be the advanced units of an invasion force.

Jacob scowled as that thought occurred to him. If the anomaly was indeed a ship and its occupants thought them the vanguard of an invasion fleet then it was imperative they establish contact with them as soon as possible. Establish contact and make them aware of their peaceful intentions and that the warships were only present to protect the cityship and wouldn't engage in offensive action unless provoked to do so.

"Admiral," one of the communications officers called bringing Jacob out of his thoughts. "The _Northern Horizon_ and her escort are approaching the anomaly. They confirm it's a ship, unknown configuration. There sending us a video feed."

"Show me," Jacob instructed a moment before a holographic screen blinked into existence in front of him showing the alien ship and the moment he saw it he felt a chill go down his spine and his stomach knot. Something about the alien vessels sleek if very alien lines and the transparent orb that contained purple-blue energy touched something inside him, down in the very fibre's of his being. Something that screamed that the ship was a thing of evil, of darkness, a ship that he should either burn from the sky, slice in half or blast to pieces as soon as possible if he wanted to live. With effort he fought down the impulse to order the _Northern Horizon_ and the destroyers with her to open fire on the aliens with every weapon they had. _Why do I suddenly want to blast them out of the sky,_ he thought even as the datastream alerted him to some kind of transmission being directed towards them from the alien ship.

He didn't have long to ponder the signal or the question of why he suddenly wanted to destroy the alien vessel for a sudden commotion at the back of the flag bridge caught his attention. Turning his command chair in the direction the noise was coming from he saw to his shock that one of the marines who guarded the entrance to the flag bridge slumped against the bulkhead. The light combat armoured man was shaking like a leaf with gauntleted hands pressed against the side of his head, his eyes were closed and he was sweating profusely as if he had just run a marathon on a multi-gee planet. The marine's entire demeanour suggested that he was fighting something, something insubstantial that threatened to overwhelm him.

"Corporal Stevens," he asked in concern rising from his chair. "Corporal what is it? What's the matter?" At the sound of his voice the younger mans eyes flew open and locked onto his own and in them Jacob saw a frightening combination of fear, terror and desperation.

"Admiral… h…h…help me," Stevens begged his voice slurred as he seemed to fight with himself. "S…s…something is trying to t…t…take o…ov…over my mind. I c… arrrggh." Stevens closed his eyes again before emitting a second piercing cry of pain, terror and despair. His hands dropped to his sides and he stopped shaking, a moment before he pushed himself up off the bulkhead and opened his eyes again.

Stevens moved away from the bulkhead and slowly looked around the flag bridge at the crew who were all looking at him in concern. His movements were jerky and awkward as though he was suddenly no longer sure of the capabilities of his own musculature. Then his eyes met Jacob's and Jacob almost took a step back – even though the only place to go back to was his chair – at what he saw. Stevens's eyes had undergone some kind of indefinable transformation; there was nothing in them, no warmth, no humanity nothing but a cool malevolence and an intelligence that seemed as cold and cruel as space itself. With a start Jacob realised he wasn't looking at Stevens at all, not anymore, but someone or something else. Something that was using Stevens's body like a puppet master pulling on a marionette's strings.

"So you return," Stevens said but his voice was like his eyes, cold and expressionless instead was a flat monotone that was in many ways far more frightening than any below. "After all this time you return to challenge us again."

"Return?" Jacob questioned. "Who are you? What have you done to Stevens?"

"I use him for my voice, Alteran," the alien controlling Stevens answered and Jacob suddenly understood. These aliens whoever they were had encountered the Ancients sometime in the distant past, possibly even fought with them. If the Ancients had it would explain the uneasiness he'd felt when he'd seen the alien ship, the instinct that screamed it was a threat and to destroy it. It had been a race memory, something buried in his DNA just like the ATA gene was and which had been transferred into the Tau'ri race in general centuries ago when genetic therapy had given everyone born on Earth or her off world colonies ATA as well as extending lifespan, conquering genetic disease and improving general health.

"Your mistaken we're not the Ancients," Jacob replied hoping to smooth things over with the aliens before something happened that they all would regret. He had no desire to start a war after all. "The last of them died or ascended to a higher plane of existence long ago."

"So I am aware from your Corporal Stevens memories," the alien answered before shrugging as he/she/it became more accustomed to manipulating human musculature. "It matters not, like all aliens you are nothing compared to us."

Jacob frowned slightly at that comment and felt another chill deep inside. "I'm sure there is much our species could learn from each other," he replied. "We only want peaceful coexistence with other civilisations spacefaring or otherwise."

"Your words are empty as is your future," the alien replied. "Before us you are nothing but cattle you will die because we demand that you die."

"Surely peace is preferable to bloodshed," Jacob said trying to be diplomatic even though the alien's arrogant attitude was starting to seriously grate on him.

"You are inferior life forms. Your very presence in the universe is a transgression against all existence. Only we have the right to exist; only we will exist. Your species like so many others before you is doomed, we will take your ships and find your world and destroy it. You will end only we will endure."

"And who are you," Jacob demanded getting annoyed now and wondering if he should have given into the impulse he'd had earlier and ordered the _Northern Horizon_ and destroyer squadron three to destroy the alien vessel.

"Who are we? We are power beyond your comprehension inferior. But we will teach you, even as we consume you."

"If you attack us we'll defend ourselves," Jacob warned. "Many have tried to destroy my people and all have failed, I urge you don't repeat there mistake. It is better for both our species to be friends rather than enemies."

Again the alien made Stevens shrug. "As I have said your words are empty as is your future inferior. You can fight and die or stand aside and die we care not which. Either way you Admiral Robyns will not be alive to see it."

As the alien/Stevens spoke it/he reacted. In a movement almost to fast to see the alien took Stevens sidearm from his armours belt and pointed the nucleonic disruptor right at him while flipping the switch that moved its setting from stun to kill. A faint sneer appeared on Stevens face as the alien moved a finger towards the trigger only to stop and suddenly start shaking again, the weapon shaking madly. Jacob immediately realised what was happening, realised that Stevens had been aware of what the alien was saying and doing with his body and had somehow marshalled the strength to fight back. For a moment the Stevens eyes changed becoming human again.

"S…s…stop me," he begged looking at his superior in desperation as he felt the alien mind reel in surprise at his defiance and unexpected recovery of control before starting to try to push him back, back into the corner of his mind where he had been a helpless observer to the exchange. "I c…c…can't hold…"

A disruptor whined and abruptly Stevens stiffened his whole body going tense as a green field of energy rippled around his body as his armours shield flickered and died as the beam on the exact opposing frequency to it cancelled it out. Again a disruptor whined making the armours dispersive web glow brilliant blue as Stevens dropped to his knees and for a moment the alien was back, glaring at Jacob in defiance.

"You only po…postpone the inevitable," the alien growled just as the second marine at the door Corporal Anders fired his disruptor on stun for the third time. The blue energy beam overwhelming the energy dispersive mesh that made up the outermost layer of the light combat armour Stevens was wearing and dumping all of its energy into the soft, fleshy human beneath the hard exterior shell of armour. The alien controlling Stevens cried out in fury and defeat before Stevens eyes rolled back and his head and he dropped fully to deck unconscious.

"Nice timing," Jacob said to Anders.

"Thank you sir," Anders replied before looking sympathetically down at his fellow marine and wishing he could do something, anything to negate the mental trauma that he knew he would have suffered.

"Admiral the signal the alien ship was directing towards us has stopped," one of the sensor techs reported. "Alien vessel is powering weapons and attempting to break orbit to move towards us."

"Raise shields. Communications contact destroyer squadron three and the _Northern Horizon_ tell them to lock onto and destroy the alien ship," Jacob ordered before looking back at Anders. "Take Corporal Stevens to sickbay; explain to the doc what happened."

"Aye sir," Anders and the senior communications officer replied in unison.

As they hurried to carry out his orders Jacob sat back down in his command chair and turned back around to face the still floating holographic screen showing the feed from the _Northern Horizon's_ forward optical scanners. The alien vessel was indeed moving out of the polar orbit it had been maintaining and angling to attack the _Achilles_ however before it could bring its bows – and presumably whatever weapons it had – to bear the four destroyers with the _Northern Horizon_ opened fire.

Green energy beams erupted from the centre of each destroyers bow as they fired the light particle slicer beam cannon that were the single most powerful weapon each ship had. A weapon that was so bulky that on such small ships it had to be mounted running down the ships central axis but which more than made up for its fixed axial nature with its devastating firepower. Firepower that was sufficient to cut any vessel known to the Tau'ri in half in very short order.

As Jacob watched all four scintillating emerald green energy beams slammed into the alien warship with searing, white hot force. A shield momentarily flared a brilliant white around the vessel as it fought to repel the intense force of the Ancient-tech based beam weapons before evaporating allowing the beams to slice into the vulnerable ship beneath. Two of the searing beams sliced through the alien ships forward section, cutting right through the ship and coming out the other side, another beam struck just aft of the glowing globe structure tearing the engines right off the ship and making it lurch forward even as it started visibly breaking up from the catastrophic damage inflicted to its forward superstructure. The forth beam slammed into and through the energy globe triggering a massive explosion that completely enveloped the alien vessel. When the glare faded all that was left of the alien was a spreading plume of dust, half molten metal fragments and cooling plasma.

Jacob sighed softly and shook his head even as he gave a mental command to the datastream dismissing the holoscreen. He regretted having the alien ship destroyed but there hadn't really been any other choice as the aliens obviously weren't interested in diplomacy and had been manoeuvring to attack his ship. Though what one small alien vessel that wasn't much bigger than a Windraker-class destroyer could hope to do to a four kilometre long Proteus-class dreadnought he didn't know.

He started to open his mouth to give an order to communications to contact Rivendell to arrange an emergency conference with Governor Shepherd when the sensors came to life screaming urgent warnings.

"Admiral we're picking up multiple hyperspace windows opening directly astern of the fleet," the senior sensor officer reported. "Multiple alien ships emerging, we're picking up both capital ships and fighters. There weapons are powered up and they are raising shields."

"Battle stations," Jacob ordered. "All ships come about and prepare to engage hostile forces. Communications get the _Northern Horizon_ and destroyer squadron three back here now, once you've done that signal Rivendell and all ships to bring all hyperdrives back online. We're withdrawing from this galaxy until we can communicate with both command and the senate to decide our next move. Sensors how many alien ships are there?"

"Twenty capital vessels ranging in size from six hundred metres to one and a half kilometres long," sensors reported, "almost two hundred fighters. The fighters seem unusually large for there size there approximately the same size as one of the ancient Goa'uld Alkesh midrange bombers however there is only one life sign on each vessel."

"Can you tell what kind of weapons they have," Jacob asked as a tactical hologram appeared in front of him showing the strength and deployment of the alien forces. He noted that the capital ships appeared to be forming up into a wall while the fighters were approaching his manoeuvring ships in groups of three, clearly on attack vectors. Possible vector lines appeared on the hologram showing that the first group of fighters were aiming to make a strafing run over the dorsal plane of the _Achilles_ and the cruisers with her before moving on to strike at Rivendell. Simultaneously a second group of alien fighters were projected to make a similar move on the ventral plane. _A reasonable strategy if all our weapons were focused in the forward arc but a mistake with us since we have guns on every conceivable firing angle,_ he thought_._

"I'm afraid I can't be sure sir," sensors replied. "I believe they're plasma weapons of some kind however the exact nature and yield are impossible to determine."

"I see," Jacob replied as he studied the tactical feed and noted a weakness in the aliens capital ship formation, in forming into a three dimensional wall in space they were leaving there central region around three of the biggest ships exposed a tactical error that he would take full advantage of.

"Tactical instruct all fighters to move to engage the alien fighter craft, all capital ships stand by with point defence plasma batteries," he ordered calmly. "Main batteries and drones target the centre of the alien capital ship formation. Communications instruct all cruisers along with destroyer squadrons one and two to form into a tight wedge formation with the _Achilles,_ we're going to blow right through the centre of there lines.

"Instruct the _Northern_ _Horizon_ and destroyer squadrons three and four to assume defensive formation around Rivendell. Tell them to stay in close behind us, as soon as we're all through the line we'll all jump straight into hyperspace."

"Sir what about our fighters," one of the other tactical officers asked.

"There drones commander remotely controlled from our ships, it doesn't matter too much if we leave them behind. Tell the pilot-controllers to program there ships to lock onto the closest alien vessel and ram it the moment all our ships are safely back in hyperspace."

"Aye sir. Enemy fighters coming into firing range."

"Let them take the first shots," Jacob instructed before mentally submerging himself in the datastream ready to react at the speed of thought to any changes on the battlefield. Around him and on all the other warships Tau'ri officers did the same engaging the neural interface at its full capabilities which gave them such an advantage when engaged in battle against whoever was foolish enough to challenge them to direct combat. An advantage that let Tau'ri commanders and crews react to changing circumstances at the speed of thought which gave them a rapid reaction time that hadn't been seen since the end of the Ancients.

* * *

_Charging forward ahead of the capital ships that assumed the standard offensive wall formation of there kind the Sinhindrea Younglings piloting the fighter sets there sights on the alien inferiors who'd dared to destroy one of their warships. A thin screen of small alien fighters moved towards them but the Younglings weren't concerned as they were after all Sinhindrea and by that nature were the best pilots in the universe. To a soul they were confident that they would quickly blow through the fighters and begin attacks on the alien ships and the city flying along behind them._

_Crossing an invisible line in space the Younglings engaged there newest and yet at the same time oldest enemy an enemy that millions of years ago had driven there species to the brink of total annihilation, volleying balls of antiproton based plasmatic energy at the inferiors. Gratification gripped the Younglings as they observed a number of alien fighters explode as they took solid hits taking anyone on board with them._

* * *

Balls of burning plasma that looked more like globs of molten lava than anything else streaked across space from the Sinhindrea fighters into a handful of the dozens of drone Hornet fighters that had been detailed to intercept them. The blasts of antimatter based plasma exploded the moment they hit the fast moving but lightly armoured and shielded fighters sending a dozen of them to there doom in short lived blasts of energy flame.

Continuing forward the Sinhindrea fighters opened up on the capital ships sending blasts into the shields of the leading Tau'ri ships including the _Achilles_. Shields flashed bluish white with cherenkov radiation as the bolts impacted and broke up, the energy sleeting ineffectively back out into space even as they outlined part of the shields that hugged close to the hulls of the Tau'ri vessels like a second skin as opposed to the more bubble shields the Sinhindrea were used to dealing with. Small anti-aircraft turrets on the warships rotated and returned fire sending out rapid fire orange bolts of superheated plasma wrapped in gravitic fields that poured forth at a rate of fire comparable to that of an old fashioned machine gun.

Several Sinhindrea fighters took direct hits and staggered back in space there shields flaring brilliantly as they struggled to withstand the plasma attack. More bolts of plasma smashed into the staggering fighters punching through the weakened shields and through the thin metallic skin of the fighters. The targeted fighters broke apart, spilling rapidly freezing water into space a moment before there miniature dark energy power cores gave way and detonated. Heedless of the losses the Sinhindrea fighters pressed there attack, strafing the dorsal and ventral sides of the Tau'ri ships and drawing retaliatory fire from multiple AA plasma turrets on multiple ships. Several more Sinhindrea fighters exploded as they took multiple strikes from multiple turrets before they were past the leading warships.

Rivendell surrounded by the thin screen of ships formed by the _Northern Horizon_ and destroyer squadrons three and four was directly in front of them. Forming up the survivors of the initial fighter wave moved to attack and ran into a literal wall of plasma flak from not just the warships, but defensive batteries around the perimeter of Rivendell as well as the aft defensive batteries of the warships they'd just past. The barrage swept over the Sinhindrea fighters like an avalanche over a defenceless, unsuspecting town. In momentary bursts of liberated energy the Sinhindrea fighters disappeared – wiped from the sky as if they had never been present at all.

* * *

**Sinhindrea Command Ship**

_Aboard the largest of the Sinhindrea capital warships the Hunt Lord in charge of the force dispatched to engage the new inferiors roared in fury as he observed the total destruction of the initial wave of attack fighters with little to no damage being done to the inferiors in return. He noted the effectiveness of the alien plasma defence batteries – they were going to be a problem as the weapons were formidable and fired at an absurdly rapid rate. The Younglings would have to be more careful in there attack runs._

_Through the cyber link the Hunt Lord instructed the Younglings in the second and third fighter waves to adjust there attack patterns to factor in the alien defences. It appeared that in addition to being new but not new at the same time these inferiors – inheritors of the despised Alterans – were a formidable foe not to be underestimated. With the Younglings properly chastised for being overconfident and the second attack wave on its way the Hunt Lord turned his attention to the approaching capital ships and noted with surprise that the inferiors weren't spreading out to engage the whole of his forces. When they'd fought the Alterans in the past they'd always spread there ships out to engage all hostile Sinhindrea forces but these were different. Instead they were staying close together in a tight attack formation._

_A formation that was heading right for the vulnerable centre part of the assault wall._

_Understanding came to the Hunt Lord and he felt a twinge of respect for his adversaries grow. The inferiors might be just that but they weren't fools and clearly knew how to hunt. They'd spotted the weakness in the assault wall and clearly planned to hit the wall right there with there full strength which would quickly let them breakthrough._

_Rapidly the Hunt Lord gave fresh orders through the cyber link to the other ships of his forces even as a hail of green particle beams erupted from the alien ships forward batteries all focused on a mere three battlecruisers. A barrage of blue and whitish-orange bolts followed along behind the barrage of beams and a yellow stream of tiny fast moving objects that the Hunt Lord had only seen in history files began to emerge from the alien ships._

_The three targeted battlecruisers exploded under the assault of particle beams, charged particle bolts and plasma blasts there shields overwhelmed by the sheer power of the alien weapons which proceeded to then rip open the dark energy reactor nodes._

_Sending a signal to the reserves to prepare to enter the battle earlier than planned the Hunt Lord observed the inferiors as they continued approaching aiming for the gap they'd blown in the disintegrating assault wall. Even as they glowing squid-shaped projectiles began pounding into the shields of nearby Sinhindrea ships putting them under intense strain the wall fell back out of range and reformed into a tighter formation, determined to prevent the aliens escaping to hyperspace which was clearly there intention._

* * *

**Flag Bridge**

**TFS Achilles**

Admiral Jacob Robyns was aware that his physical body was frowning as through the electronic eyes of the ships sensors he saw the aliens pull back there forces and reassemble and assemble into a tighter battle formation directly in the fleet's path. _Hmm obviously these aliens can think on there feet and adjust there tactics on the fly if they are found wanting,_ he thought.

"_Hyperdrive status?"_ he thought spoke into the datastream.

"_All warships and the __Northern Horizon__ report that there hyperdrives are back online however __Rivendell__ reports that they are experiencing a problem with there main hyperdrive cooling pump, its not restarting properly, as a result safety systems built into Arwen's programming will not allow the hyperdrive to power up and engage. They are switching over to a backup however it will be another few minutes before they will be capable of hyperspace travel,"_ tactical thought spoke back.

_Damn what a time for a hardware fault on Rivendell,_ Jacob thought with a momentary spike of annoyance at the all powerful, bastard of a being called Murphy. They had broken through the alien offensive formation and forced them to pull back to reform, which would have been a perfect time to make the jump to hyperspace and escape.

After a moment he noted that the reformed alien ships were approaching bolts of plasma blasting forth from the long barrel-like tendrils that appeared to be there guns as they closed to weapons range again. Already deployed drones immediately streaked towards the aliens pounding their forward shields and making the leading aliens shudder in agony under the assault. He was surprised to note that the drones weren't immediately passing through the alien shields as they did most shields in his experience but then again if these aliens had fought the Ancients in the past they would have adjusted there shields to better withstand attack by one of the Ancients favourite weapons systems. There was also the fact that the drones made by his people weren't quite as advanced as the Ancient weapons they were based off of – only able to achieve partial phase as opposed to full phase, and while this was sufficient to penetrate most shields it clearly wasn't enough against the alien shields which seemed on a par with those of the Asgard.

A violently shudder ran through the deck of the _Achilles_ as several antiproton plasma bolts exploded against her bow shields, setting them aglow but so far doing no damage beyond forcing damage control to divert more ZPM power to the shield matrix shoring up the barrier and preventing damage.

"_Very well all forward batteries resume firing upon the alien ships," _he ordered into the datastream again speaking with his mind ignoring the feel of his body being pulled sideways by the momentary loss of gravitational stability. _"All cruisers concentrate fire on the largest of the alien ships. Destroyers concentrate fire on smaller vessels and detail drones to intercept the next wave of enemy fighters."_

"_Aye sir."_

"_Communications contact Rivendell, tell them to make all due haste with there hyperdrive repairs. I don't want to be hanging here in open space in an all out slugging match with the aliens any longer than I have to."_

"_Aye sir. Sir Rivendell reports that they will be capable of hyperspace travel in two minutes," _the senior comm. officer thought spoke back through the datastream.

"_Admiral sensors are picking up more hyperspace windows opening," _sensors reported. _"Twelve more alien capital ships and a hundred more fighters inbound. They're moving into formation with the others."_

"_Wonderful. Very well instruct all ships to divert as much energy as possible to reinforcing shields."_

"_Aye sir."_

* * *

Emerald green particle slicer beams, electric blue ion bolts, whitish orange plasma bolts and glowing yellow drone weapons flew from the main weapons arrays of the Tau'ri warships in an unceasing flood of raw destructive power that crashed against the shields of the Sinhindrea warships like a tsunami. Bolts of magma-like plasma flew back in an equally unceasing stream pounding against the ZPM-reinforced Ancient-style shields of the Tau'ri ships making them flare brilliantly under the strain.

With so much energy blasting back and forth unceasingly it was inevitable that sooner or later ships would begin dying. Three brilliant explosions erupted among the Sinhindrea line as two battlecruisers and one battleship lost there shields to heavy fire from the Tau'ri's powerful main weapons to have there vulnerable reactor nodes torn apart.

A moment later an explosion erupted in the Tau'ri line as a destroyers shield generator overloaded under the strain it was taking and blew out. Like sharks sensing blood Sinhindrea fighters descended on the suddenly vulnerable vessel antiproton plasma bolts trigger massive explosions where they encountered and ripped through the destroyer's thin armoured hull. Secondary explosions tore through the dying vessel until one sliced through the neutrino-ion generator that was one of the ships main sources of power dumping all its energy into normal space at once. For a moment the destroyer's shattered hull contained the massive energy wave then it burst forth tearing the vessel apart in a monstrous fireball. A second destroyer followed a few moments later as its own shields gave way under the intense pummelling allowing an especially large plasma ball fired by a Sinhindrea battlecruiser to punch through its hull and detonate inside its main engine room, the resultant explosion as the engines especially the hyperdrive dissolved into there component elements tearing the once proud vessel apart.

* * *

**Flag Bridge**

**TFS Achilles**

Admiral Robyns frowned as he observed the destruction of the destroyers _Griffin's Wing_ and _Siren's Song_ with all hands within a few seconds of each other. He knew it was inevitable that he would loose ships as the battle continued and the strain on shields mounted – ZPM's could only reinforce shields so far after all – but he still didn't like loosing people, no commanding officer worth there salt did. And the worst thing was he knew the _Griffin's Wing_ and _Siren's Song_ would only be the first to be destroyed as a glance at the part of the datastream that showed fleet status was enough to inform him that several ships were now starting to suffer significant shield damage – most were destroyers but one of them was a cruiser which was being constantly strafed by alien fighters even as it exchanged blows with a staggering but somehow still functioning alien warship.

"_Admiral message from Rivendell,"_ communications reported, _"there hyperdrive is back online. We're ready to depart."_

"_Excellent,"_ Jacob thought spoke back a feeling of pure relief falling over him like a soothing balm, with Rivendell's hyperdrive back online they could finally leave the field of battle before he lost anymore of the people whose lives he was ultimately responsible for. _"All ships form up and engage hyperdrives. We're leaving."_

"_Aye sir."_

* * *

**Sinhindrea Command Ship**

_The Hunt Lord winced as a brilliant explosion besides his vessel signalled the destruction of another vessel – this one a battlecruiser assigned to support his battleship. This battle with the new/old inferiors was proving to be very costly to the Sinhindrea in lives and resources, almost all there fighters had been destroyed and all warships were reporting that there shields were under enormous strain repelling the powerful alien weapons hammering them, weapons that seemed to be as powerful as the alien shields which appeared to be insanely strong, easily stronger than anything the Sinhindrea had encountered in along time. _

_The destruction of two of the alien capital ships and all there fighters for ten of his and eighty percent of his fighters was not an equivalent exchange. The Hunt Lord was well aware that unless something changed soon the inferiors were going to win, there weapons and defences were just to powerful for his numerically inferior forces to overwhelm fast enough to kill them before being killed themselves. A request for reinforcements had already been sent but the nearest ships were still a good few minutes away. When the fifteen ships incoming arrived the tide of battle would finally shift in the Sinhindrea's favour – his forces just had to hold on until they got here._

_A change in the sensor readings of the inferior's ships caught his attention and the Hunt Lord turned his full attention to the tactical display. To see that that the aliens were moving, gathering around the large flying city, forming up into a sphere around it. Power and subspace field readings from there hyperdrives were increasing and with a jolt the Hunt Lord realised that they were about to jump._

_Infuriated at the thought that the inferiors were going to escape after claiming the lives of so many of those infinitely greater than them the Hunt Lord commanded all ships to fire everything they had at the aliens now. Hopefully they would impact the aliens just before they jumped into hyperspace when there shields went down as it was a well known fact that nobody could use shields in hyperspace – nobody. If they did then the battle would end with a victory for the Sinhindrea as the inferiors had shown that there ships were weak once there shields fell._

* * *

Volleys of magma-like plasma bolts flew from the Sinhindrea capital ships towards the retreating Tau'ri expeditionary fleet. The blasts of plasmatic death arrived just as the whole fleet once again combined there drive power and opened up a truly colossal hyperspace window. Fired rapidly and without any real attempt to aim the plasma assault missed the Tau'ri ships but impacted on the event horizon of the hyperspace window, with devastating results.

The moment the exotic plasma of the Sinhindrea weapons impacted the hyperspace window it flashed and rippled with rainbow colours before flickering and folding in on itself without closing. The swirling energies changed colour and before the horrified eyes of the Tau'ri crews the hyperspace window mutated and ceased to be a portal into hyperspace – instead becoming a swirling green-white funnel that looked like the vortex created when water went down a sink plughole.

Intense gravitic forces reached out from the hyperspace window turned wormhole and grabbed the Tau'ri ships. Already committed to jumping to hyperspace the crews had no chance to react even with there neural interface systems still active at full power. First the _Achilles_ disappeared into the wormhole, followed quickly by its flanking cruisers, then Rivendell and the whole of remaining fleet. As each ship crossed into the anomaly and passed through the event horizon it created a spike of gravitic energy a spike that made the wormhole expanded until its trailing edge snared several Sinhindrea warships including the Hunt Lords wounded but still functioning battleship.

Unable to fight the intense gravitic forces of the mutated window/wormhole the seven Sinhindrea warships were pulled into the vortex, one of the more damaged Sinhindrea warships exploded before it could be swallowed up by the event horizon. The blast of dark energy liberated from its reactor node spread out and merged with the swirling energies of the wormhole, breaking the super subspace symmetry that all non-Stargate wormholes needed to stay open. In a literal blink of an eye the wormhole collapsed in upon itself and vanished.

A subspace blast wave rippled out from the location where the event horizon had been and slammed into the remaining Sinhindrea warships and fighters. For the fighters the intense forces of the blast wave were too much to endure and they shattered like brittle glass before exploding. The capital warships fared better as there shields absorbed the worst of the blast. But they were still sent reeling, spinning through space out of control.

After a few moments the Sinhindrea got their ships back under control and their sensors swept the area for any sign of their prey. But their was no sign, the Tau'ri ships, the Hunt Lord and five more of there own ships were gone, vanished as if they had never been present at all.


	3. Chapter 02

_**Stargate: Thirdspace** _

_**Chapter Two**_

**Flag Bridge**

**TFS Achilles**

**A Few Moments Earlier**

Admiral Jacob Robyns was aware of his physical body emitting a gasp of horror as the massive barrage of exotic alien plasma weapon fire impacted the fleet's hyperspace window. Through the electronic eyes of the _Achilles_ sensors he observed the window distort, he half expected it to shatter and fade away as hyperspace windows had done in the past when subjected to such an intense influx of unstable energies. The massive feedback from such occurrences usually lead to the destruction or at very least severe crippling of the ship generating the window as the subspace field generators that were the essential component of any hyperdrive systems overloaded and either burned out or blew apart depending on how good the safety systems were and how quickly they responded to the overload.

Strangely however that did not happen this time. As alarms and warnings screamed through the datastream the subspace matrix of the window bent and warped and transformed into the characteristic, largely unstable format of an unanchored wormhole – one that was giving off both an extremely intense gravitic field and an odd quantum level subspace flux. Faster than anyone could possibly react to counter – even with a neural interface on full power – the unstable field expanded and seized the ship in its grip.

A violent judder ran through the deck of the _Achilles_ as the normally mighty dreadnought was seized in the grip of gravitic forces that for all the immense power of her drives she was completely unable to fight. Additional alarms screamed through the datastream as hyperdrive and conventional drive systems energy levels and core temperatures redlined before shutting down as automatic systems cut in to prevent meltdown.

With all engines off the _Achilles_ was drawn unresistingly into the wormhole. The ship rocked violently as she transited the event horizon. The datastream interface vanished from Jacobs mind as he was physically thrown out of his command chair to slam into the unforgiving trinium-carbon nanomesh alloy deck with enough force that the air was instantly ripped from his lungs. From all around him – mixing with the discordant, multi-tonal screaming of Lantean-style emergency klaxons – came the pained screams and yelps of the flag bridge crew as they to were thrown out of seats by the violent shudders rattling the dreadnought.

Struggling to get his breath back so he could try to stand, Jacob glanced at the view screen at the front of the bridge. To see that the ship was now travelling down a crackling and constantly shifting green-white tunnel that looked like a more unstable, not to mention more turbulent, version of a normal hyperspace conduit. Massive arcs of what looked almost like lightning leapt between the walls of tunnel through subspace and the fleet, crackling over the starships and cityship, encasing all of them in spheres of pulsating light.

Jacob gasped as he suddenly felt incredible tension and pain erupt across his whole body. It felt almost like the basic matter of which his body was composed was being subjected to intense stress, alternatively being compressed and pulled, twisted and torn. The pain was blindingly intense, obliterating every coherent thought in his head and tearing at his very sanity. Faintly he heard himself screaming, his screams mingling with the screams of everyone else on the flag bridge and throughout the entire fleet as they all experienced the same unspeakable physical and mental torment.

After what seemed like an eternity there came a brilliant flash of light and for a moment out of time the torturous pain and everything else seemed to stop. All he could hear and feel was the thudding of his heart beat and the roar of blood rushing in his ears. _Am I dead, are we dead, _he wondered, _trapped in some sort of limbo state by the wormhole?_

Reality came crashing back in with all the force of a category five hurricane and all the subtlety of a rampaging bull in a china shop. The searing pain returned with a vengeance and he couldn't help but scream and scream. Scream until his throat felt raw from the unbelievable torment ravaging his body and mind and making him think that he was going to go insane any second. In fact insanity right now sounded like a good prospect as it would at least make the pain go away.

Then with breathtaking suddenness the torment stopped.

For a few moments he lay completely insensate then full awareness of his surroundings returned and Jacob became fully aware that he was lying on the metal deck of the flag bridge. From all around he could hear the faint moaning of the crew and the urgent wailing of the emergency klaxons.

For a few moments he could only lay there on the deck, gasping and shaking with the after effects of what he'd just experienced. After a few moments he awkwardly, laboriously climbed back to his feet and looked around at the rest of the flag bridge.

A faint haze of smoke, impregnated with the scent of overloaded control crystals and burnt optical cabling hung in the air. The main lights were still on but at a reduced level indicating that the amount of power available to operate them – and presumably the amount available to the rest of the ship – had dropped. Two of the smaller consoles were dark and lifeless with several more flickering fitfully. Thankfully the crew seemed to be alright, like him they were all picking themselves up off the deck and looking around to regain their bearings.

Awkwardly on legs that felt like they were made of jelly instead of skin, muscle and bone Jacob staggered back over to his command chair and sat down. Immediately he felt the familiar sensation of the command datastream unfolding at the back of his mind. Closing his eyes for a moment he relaxed into the stream, letting ship status reports flood into his awareness.

What they revealed was not encouraging.

Primary power was out throughout the whole of the _Achilles_, leaving only the emergency naquada generators and subspace capacitor discs to provide power to essential systems like life support and artificial gravity. Shields were down and all weapons systems were currently off line. A handful of systems had been blown out by rogue energy surges, thankfully automatic repair systems were already working on restoring them. The sensors reported that they were back in normal space surrounded by the familiar arrangement of stars, moons, nebulae and planets that characterised a normal galaxy. However the navigational computer was coming as close to electronically tying itself into a knot as it could as it tried to work out exactly where the ship was. What wasn't helping was that the ship was rapidly drifting forwards with the inertia imparted by the transit through the wormhole. Sublight drives were off line however a quick check of the diagnostic system showed that the system only needed to be reset.

With what seemed like extreme effort he reached into the datastream and with a single though reset the systems. Immediately the system came back online and automatic systems cut in, addressing the dreadnoughts forward momentum and bringing the four kilometre long warship to a dead halt in space. Before he turned his attention to the short range scanner feeds, trying to find Rivendell, the _Northern Horizon_ and the rest of his fleet. To his relief he soon spotted all of them, still in formation but drifting forward on inertia just like the _Achilles_ had been. Power readings on all the ships were way down on what they should be – clearly they'd lost their main power systems as well. Only Rivendell was giving off anywhere near its normal power readings though even it was showing some energy fluctuations though the sensors on the _Achilles_ weren't able to determine exactly what was causing them.

"Communications," he called out his voice hoarse and weak from having screamed so loud and for so long.

"Sir," the officer on duty responded immediately his voice also weak with the side effects of the horrible pain they'd so recently experienced.

"Contact Rivendell and the other ships, I want a full crew and ship status report from all of them as soon as possible."

"Aye sir," the officer replied a moment before the overhead light crystals flickered once then brightened as full power returned to them. Throughout the ship there came a soft thrum of power as primary power returned to the dreadnought, the command datastream immediately informing Jacob that engineering had reconnected the ships ZPM's to the power grid and were in the process of restarting the main neutrino-ion generators. The datastream also alerted him to readings from the short range sensors that showed the fleet was stabilising itself, all his ships, the _Northern Horizon_ and Rivendell coming to a dead halt in space. As the after effects of the passage through the wormhole faded the crews were obviously beginning to be their normal efficient selves and were taking steps to stabilise the fleet.

"Admiral I think you should see this," the navigation officer reported breaking into Jacob's thoughts.

"What is it," Jacob asked.

"I've managed to get the navigational computers to come back online but the systems are spitting back confusing readings. I've run standard diagnostics and the navigational systems are reading as fully operational, as strange as the readings are – they're accurate."

"What's wrong with the sensor readings?"

"Sir according to these readings we're back in the Milky Way galaxy somewhere towards the outer edge of the Orion Arm, however we can't get a precise lock on our exact location. As impossible as it seems some of the stars and celestial features around us have changed relative to our star charts and that's preventing us getting a precise lock on exactly where we are."

"What do you mean they've changed?"

"Well sir some of the stars have moved or are absent all together. From what I can tell Sol, Epsilon Eridani, Sirius, Alpha Centauri and Altair are the only stars that are exactly where they are supposed to be according to our charts. All the others are all over the place or completely absent, for example Dakara is gone in its place is a nebula, Abydos is also missing in its place is a class two quantum singularity. And there is a second nebula in the Orion cluster that isn't there in any of our charts."

"How can that be?"

"I have no idea sir."

"Transmit a copy of your data to Rivendell and the _Northern Horizon_, maybe Arwen and Pearl can figure out what is going on."

"Aye sir," the navigational officer acknowledged hands already beginning to fly across the console as he began to carry out the order just as on the other side of the flag bridge the communications panel trilled for attention.

"Admiral we're being hailed by Rivendell, Governor Shepherd requests to speak with you immediately as a matter of utmost urgency," communications reported.

"Very well put her through."

"Aye sir."

* * *

**Stargate Operations/Central Control**

**Rivendell, A Few Minutes Earlier**

Governor Alison Shepherd was vaguely aware that someone was gently shaking her shoulder, drawing her out of the semi-conscious state that she'd descended into as a result of the searing pain that had seemingly gripped everyone in the city as they tried to escape the dark matter galaxy. Groaning she forced her eyes open, to find one of the security marines squatting down next to her features a mask of concern.

"Are you ma'am," the marine asked in concern as he saw her open her eyes and blink rapidly as she began to get her bearings back.

"I'm okay," Alison replied sitting up and trying to martial the strength to get her feet back under her without risking falling over as her legs felt like they were made of jelly. "What happened?"

"As far as I can gather ma'am weapons fire from the alien warships struck the hyperspace window and mutated it into somekind of wormhole," the marine replied standing up and offering a hand to help her up, a hand that Alison gratefully accepted. "The entire fleet was pulled in, though we appear to be back in normal space now."

"I see," Alison said leaning on the edge of one of the consoles to steady herself while she waited for her legs to regain there strength. She took a moment to glance around the room and noted that everyone was only now recovering from what they'd experienced, they certainly wouldn't be able to give her a status report until they all got there bearings back. Thankfully there was another way to get an immediate report on the state of the city, "Arwen."

"Yes Governor Shepherd," Arwen answered as her holographic avatar blinked into existence in front of her.

"Status report please, Arwen," Alison replied. "What is the condition of the city?"

"All primary systems with the exception of sublight drives read as online though several minor support systems have failed – automatic repair efforts commencing. I am also detecting a number of unusual power fluctuations on pier four however I am currently unable to identify the source as several of my internal sensors in that area have been damaged. I have dispatched repair drones, the damaged systems should be back online shortly as initial analysis shows the damage to the sensors is limited to some burned out control crystals."

"What about the population?"

"Life form scanners have revealed that all the cities population are accounted for however almost all appear to be showing signs of acute neural shock. I have begun releasing appropriate treatment agents into the ventilation systems. I am also detecting a number of individuals moving around in the more shielded areas here in the central tower, in the power plants and in the main drive control rooms. It is likely that the increased shielded in those areas reduced the neurological effects of the passage through the wormhole."

"What about the _Northern Horizon _and our escorts," Alison asked. "Are they still with us?"

"Yes. I am reading life signs on all of our escort ships and on the _Northern Horizon_. Most appear to be quickly recovering from the effects of neural shock due to the additional shielding being present on board all the ships."

"Good. Keep me informed about those power fluctuations, Arwen. I want to know if they are anything that we should be concerned about."

"As you wish," Arwen acknowledged before blinking giving a good impression of being surprised. "Governor I am receiving a transmission from the _Achilles._ They're sending me some navigational data that I am able to confirm. We are back in normal space in the region of the Milky Way galaxy referred to as the Orion Arm however a number of the stars around us have changed from our existing records."

"How is that possible?"

"Unknown at this time," Arwen replied then the avatar gave a very realistic impression of a puzzled frown, "I am also detecting something strange, both the quantum resonance frequency of the space around the fleet has changed and there is no subspace activity of any kind registering on any of our sensors."

"None at all," Alison exclaimed shocked. Normally the Milky Way was alive with subspace activity of all kinds from the distinctive signature of wormholes between active gates, to ships travelling in hyperspace, to interstellar communications chatter. There was simply no way for there to be no subspace traffic of any kind, that hadn't happened in millions of years as even during the long reign of the Goa'uld System Lords subspace had never been completely quiet. "Recheck your sensors Arwen."

For a second the avatar was silent, giving a good impression of a person thinking. "Readings confirmed Governor Shepherd," Arwen said at last. "There is no subspace traffic of any kind though I am picking up a lot of tachyon streams and pulses travelling through a deep subspace layer. Origin and nature are unknown. Governor based on the available information and the difference in the quantum resonance frequency of the space around us I compute that we are in the right galaxy but the wrong quantum universe."

"How could that happen?" Alison demanded even as she inwardly groaned, transdimensional travel – especially unintentional transdimensional travel was even more of a nightmare to deal with than time travel and that was saying something. "How could we cross universes, I mean it's not like anyone around here has a quantum mirror or alternate reality drive handy."

"Unknown at this time, I can run simulations based on all available data to determine how this has occurred," Arwen suggested.

"Do it."

"Yes Governor Shepherd," Arwen acknowledged before blinking and looking concerned. "The damaged sensors on Pier Four are coming back online I am able to locate the source of the power fluctuations… oh. Governor I'm afraid I have some bad news to report."

"What is it?" Alison asked a chill going down her spine at the thought of yet more trouble. Didn't they have enough to deal with already what with being flung into an alternate universe to their own a universe where if there sensors were to be believed no one used subspace in any recognisable way?

"Sensors report damage to the primary power conduits in Pier Four," Arwen replied sounding grim. "One is completely off line having burned out and two of the remaining three are damaged causing fluctuations in the supply of energy to all systems and sections along the length of the pier. It is only a matter of time until they fail as well."

"Can your drones not repair them?"

Arwen shook her head. "Unfortunately no the level of damage that is being detected is beyond the ability of the maintenance drones to correct. Scans report that there is physical damage to the hyper-conductive cables and that five of the junction nodes with secondary conduits have also burned out. We will have to land and shut down the conduits in order to rip out the damage cabling and replace it. Checking logs to determine the cause of the power surge… scan complete at the moment we entered the wormhole there was a massive power surge through the hyperdrive systems including the subspace field emitters. The buffers that normally prevent a backwash into the main power grid failed on the Pier Four emitters causing a massive surge of power through the energy grid that was beyond the grids ability to withstand. The surge spread along the whole of the pier causing a number of overloads and burnouts in the primary power conduits till it reached the core where the buffers held and dissipated the excess charge."

"Pier Four is one of the main city piers. What's the status of the towers and the shield emitters are they getting enough power?"

"At the moment the towers are getting enough power, the piers main neutrino-ion generator is still functioning at peak capacity and local naquada generators have cut in automatically to make up for any shortfall in the supply of power to the towers. The shield emitters however are another story they're not getting an uninterrupted supply of power from the cities main power plants. As a result that section of the main shield grid is down to eighty-nine point six percent of its normal strength. It is within acceptable safety parameters for landing however it will not remain that way for long."

"How long, Arwen," Alison asked calmly while inwardly wishing she could scream in a mixture of frustration and despair. This was just too much, too damned fast. _What did we do to deserve this,_ she wondered, _all we wanted to do was investigate a new type of galaxy, we didn't ask for or want this to happen_.

"My analysis shows we will loose one of the damaged conduits within thirty-six hours. At which point the amount of power available to the shield grid will drop below the acceptable safety margins for landing."

"I see," Alison replied with a sigh. _I suppose it could have been worse,_ she thought. "Prepare to launch some long range survey probes and work with Pearl on the _Northern Horizon_, we need to find somewhere to land this city as soon as possible. Also work with engineering and damage control, tell them to patch those damaged conduits up as much as possible without shutting them down. Any additional time they could buy us would be extremely welcome."

"Yes Governor Shepherd," Arwen acknowledged.

"That will be all for now, Arwen," Alison said, "keep me apprised of the situation. I want to know the moment anything changes."

"Of course Governor Shepherd," Arwen acknowledged before her avatar shimmered once then disappeared with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble.

As the A.I disappeared Alison pushed herself away from the console she'd been using as a support and gazed around the command centre of her cityship. Anxious eyes looked back at her from the rest of the operations staff as everyone of them had heard her discussion with Arwen and all of them knew that Rivendell and the hundred and twenty thousand men, women and children who called the cityship home were in considerable danger. Like her they were aware that if both of the damaged primary conduits connecting the main power plants in the core to Pier Four failed then the shield emitters on the affected pier would go off line as the local naquada generators and the neutrino-ion generator buried at the base of the pier would not be enough to provide power to them as well as the piers life support and artificial gravity systems. It would open up a massive hole in the cities shield grid a grid that had to remain fully intact at all times when the city was in space.

"Operations begin preparing all emergency shelters and converting all public spaces here in the core and on Piers Two and Six into emergency accommodation," she ordered. "We're going to evacuate all the apartments in Pier Four until we've landed the city just to be on the safe side."

"Yes ma'am."

"Communications hail the _Achilles_ I need to speak with Admiral Robyns immediately. The rest of you begin prepping the city for emergency landing procedures."

"Yes ma'am," the operations staff all chorused and immediately set to the tasks she'd assigned them, everyone grateful to be doing something that would keep them to busy to really think about the danger threatening the city and everyone in it.

"Ma'am the _Achilles _has acknowledged our request for communication, Admiral Robyns is standing by," communications reported.

"I'll take it in my office," Alison answered before crossing the bridge that connected the control room to her office on the right hand side of the mezzanine level. She was not looking forward to telling the admiral about the problem they had, truth be told she felt guilty that she would have to dump it on him as he no doubt had plenty of problems of his own right now. But she knew she had to tell him as they would need to use at least one of his ships to check out any habitable world they found and secure the system to make sure it was indeed safe for Rivendell to land as once the city was down they wouldn't be able to take off again until the damaged conduits and burned out junction nodes were replaced.

Sitting down at her desk she pressed a button on her console and a holographic communications screen blinked into existence in front of her showing the face and shoulders of Admiral Robyns. She couldn't help but notice that he looked a little frazzled but she supposed anyone would after experiencing the intense torment they'd all endured during the passage to this reality.

"Governor Shepherd, it's good to see you're alright," Admiral Robyns said in greeting.

"Likewise admiral," Alison replied. "But this isn't a social call I'm afraid, we have quite a serious problem over here due to the passage through the wormhole."

"What kind of problem," Robyns asked frowning in concern but with a hint of resignation in his eyes, like her the last thing he wanted or needed right now was for another problem to be dumped in his lap. Unfortunately for both of them that all-powerful pain in the ass being called Murphy had chosen to give the whole task force one heck of a bad day.

"One that threatens the very future of the city," Alison answered before explaining everything that had occurred, the power fluctuations on Pier Four that had been traced to three damaged primary power conduits, the fact that the systems couldn't be repaired without landing the city, and the fact that the problem was going to get worse, to the point that in thirty-six hours they would loose an entire sector of the shield grid making it impossible to land Rivendell.

"We're organising an evacuation of Pier Four for the time being, that will enable us to shut down the life support systems to the towers there which should buy us some additional time, though how much I have no idea. We need to land this city and we need to do it soon," she concluded.

On the holographic screen the admiral looked like he had bitten an exceptionally sour lemon, concern and resignation in his eyes. "Thirty six hours," Jacob Robyns said after a few moments of silence, seemingly tasting the words. "That's not a lot of time."

"No it isn't," Alison agreed. "Finding a habitable world in time with our star charts being unreliable at best due to transdimensional displacement is going to be extremely difficult."

"Indeed," Jacob replied then frowned, "wait a minute transdimensional displacement?"

"The quantum resonance frequency of space around us is completely different to what it should be, also we are not picking up any subspace activity of any kind within our sensor range," Alison explained. "Based on both those factors Arwen believes that the wormhole created when the alien weapons impacted the fleet's hyperspace window was somekind of transdimensional rift that's dumped us out in a version of the Milky Way where subspace technology apparently doesn't exist."

"Wonderful," Jacob replied with a sigh though he didn't doubt the conclusions of Rivendell's A.I. The city had far superior sensors to those of the _Achilles_ capable of scanning up to a thousand light years in every direction. If they couldn't pick up any subspace emissions of any kind then it was a very good bet that there weren't any to be found, that combined with the changed quantum signature made the A.I's hypothesis very likely to be correct.

After a moment he sighed again. "Alright here's what I suggest we do," he said determination and resolution gleaming in his eyes, "have Arwen send out as many survey probes as possible on a comprehensive search pattern looking for a habitable world on which to land the city that's within easy travel time. I'll speak with Captain Matheson on the _Northern Horizon_ and get them to do the same. Then while the probes are searching I'll make sure a group of ships is ready to go the moment a habitable world is found."

"That does sound like the best plan," Alison agreed.

"Then I suggest that we begin immediately," Jacob replied.

"Indeed. I'll keep you apprised of any developments regarding the power situation."

"Thank you. Lets get cracking we don't have any time to waste," Jacob answered with a smile.

"That we don't," Alison agreed. "I will speak with you again soon, admiral. Hopefully I will have some better news for you then."

"I hope so to," the admiral replied with a final smile before breaking the communications link from his end making the holographic screen vanish into oblivion.

"Arwen," Alison called out prompting the A.I's avatar to blink into existence in front of her.

"Yes Governor Shepherd?" Arwen asked.

"Launch the survey probes program them to focus the search on any star with the potential for planets in the liquid water zone within two hundred light years of our current location."

"As you wish," Arwen replied, "probes programmed beginning launch sequences… all probes launched."

"Thank you, Arwen. That will be all for now." Arwen nodded once in acknowledgement of the dismissal before the holographic avatar faded out of existence. As soon as the hologram vanished Alison sighed softly to herself and leaned back in her chair. There wasn't anything she could really do now beyond hope and pray that the probes found a habitable world soon and that they were able to reach it in the time they had left before the two damaged primary power conduits in Pier Four gave up the electronic ghost and they lost the shields around that part of the city.

For she had no idea what they would do if they didn't.

* * *

Authors Note: There you go everyone. I'll get started on the next chapter soon. Before anyone asks about the Sinhindrea ships that were also pulled into the wormhole I haven't forgotten about them just as they were pulled in after the Tau'ri fleet they'll be coming out in another place and at another point in the story. Though I won't tell you when you'll have to wait and see.


	4. Chapter 03

_**Chapter Three**_

Survey probe L17 slipped effortlessly back into normal space its compact but highly sophisticated gravitic ion sublight drive already overcoming the inertial effects of hyperspace/normal space reversion. As the probe slowed to a virtual crawl its main sensor array activated and ran a preliminary scan of the system it had emerged in, its computer comparing the data to pre-existing data gathered by the long range sensors of both Rivendell and the _Northern Horizon_.

As the initial data had indicated the star system was a binary system, the two suns – one a dull reddish-orange K-type star the other a smaller yellow-white F-type – filling the system with a dual spectrum bombardment of photons. A dozen large planets and three dense asteroid fields orbited the common centre of the dual suns gravity. Data gathered by the scan confirmed that the third planet of the system was located well within the relatively narrow astrophysical band in which liquid water could exist on a planetary surface.

Obeying the directives programmed into it by Arwen prior to its launch the probe focused its sensors on the third planet and ran a much more thorough scan. The sensors immediately confirmed that the planet was an Earth-class world though it was close to twice the size of the Tau'ri homeworld, though surface gravity was only marginally higher. Two moons and a ring system were in attendance, the scan revealing that both moons had at least a thin atmosphere and were rich in many of the metals and minerals required in its maker's technology as was the planet itself.

Had it been capable of such things the probes computer would have felt a profound sense of relief and satisfaction as the analysis of the scan data entered its memory banks. However the probe lacked even a basic AI matrix so the computer didn't react beyond activating its subspace transceiver array and forwarding its preliminary findings to its Tau'ri masters via an encrypted data burst before powering down the transceiver.

Moments later the probe began moving again, its compact but powerful gravitic ion engine propelling it into the inner system on a course to enter a standard orbit of the third planet. With no need to worry about inertial dampening for fragile humans the probe crossed the distance in no time at all and settled into orbit. Once there it activated its main sensor array again and began running more in depth scans of the planet, searching for anything that could harm its masters if they came here, as well as mapping out areas that might be of interest to them.

The probe went about its duties with mechanical precision and single mindedness completely unaware that it was being watched.

* * *

**Technomage Vessel**

Sitting in a meditative pose amid a sea of stars Alwyn frowned slightly as he studied the data displayed in the tennis ball sized crystal he was holding in his left hand. He had been aimlessly wandering through this system, quietly fuming to himself over the Circles decision to find a place for the order to hide out against the tide of darkness that was beginning to rise in the galaxy, when an intense energy burst had teased his ships sensors. It had garnered his full attention as it had both been a distortion in subspace, which was something none of the Younger Races who frequented this part of the galaxy used and it also didn't match anything the order had ever recorded in its long history.

The object that had emerged from the distortion – a distortion that had closed behind it – was clearly a probe of some kind. However its design and technology didn't match that of any known species be they Younger Races, Middle Born or even First One. However despite its unknown and obviously advanced nature some of the materials used in its construction were familiar. Especially the presence of a metallic quartz material that had incredible superconductive and amplification properties, the order knew the material well they had encountered it a number of times and even experimented with from time to time. In the probe the material – that the order referred to as mithril – appeared to be both a component of the silver-white metal alloy of which the probe was constructed and in a highly refined and stable liquid state. The latter especially was astonishing as all the orders experiments with mithril had shown getting the material into a stable liquid state was impossible – the few times they'd tried it had very literally blown up in their faces.

Alwyn was fascinated.

With a few hand gestures he instructed his ship to follow the probe while maintaining full stealth protection. As the ship carried out his instructions he turned his full attention to trying to learn more about this probe – which was obviously the product of a society that was far more technologically and scientifically advanced than any race this side of the First Ones. It was also obvious that whoever they were they were clearly very interested in the third planet of the system as the probe was clearly surveying it. _Probably considering it as a location for a new colony,_ he thought though he was somewhat puzzled. As far as the order knew there was no race in this part of space – other than the Vorlons or the Shadows – that had the capability to build anything like this probe and it clearly wasn't of their manufacture as the probe was purely mechanical as opposed to being organic. Either the orders records were in error – which was a very uncomfortable idea – or something else was going on, something unprecedented.

"If only Galen was here he'd love looking at this," Alwyn muttered softly to himself thinking of his old friend and fellow rebel amongst the ranks of the Technomages. The probe seemed to get more mysterious and therefore far more interesting the more he looked at it; scans that penetrated the thin metal fuselage of the device showed that there was no electronic circuits of any known kind on board, the closest thing to electronics the probe had were cables and they themselves were thin and non-metallic in nature, though the scan could not confirm exactly what it was they were made from. The cables ran in conduits that connected to a series of small cell-like structures filled with liquid mithril – which seemed to function as the probes power source, and crystals but nothing else. Whatever the technology on the probe was it was completely different to anything he had ever seen in his life before.

A warning from the sensors brought him out of contemplation of the mystery probe. Turning his full attention to the sensor feeds Alwyn felt his eyes widen as an extremely large subspace distortion was forming in orbit of the planet. The distortion was identical to the one the probe had appeared out of only a few orders of magnitude bigger and with energy levels so high he could barely believe it. He watched in awe as the distortion peeled apart the barriers between normal space and the infinite realms of subspace and a massive aquamarine coloured vortex burst into existence in orbit of the planet.

For a few more moments nothing happened, then the vortex pulsed and ships began emerging into normal space. _A practical subspace based FTL drive system extraordinary,_ Alwyn thought as the first of the ships slowed to a virtual stop in space. They were sleek vessels, vaguely resembling the knife-like shape of a Narn warship while being distinctly different and moving with an easy grace that would make even the fastest Minbari war cruiser go green with envy. The first ships appeared to be quite small only a few hundred metres long, but as more ships began appearing the sizes went up to ships as big as an Earth Alliance Hyperion-class cruiser. Another ship appeared this one a giant four kilometre long monster followed by some more of the smaller ones, which appeared to be in a spherical formation around something that was emerging behind the massive vessel. Something that made Alwyn's jaw drop open in astonishment as emerging from the distortion was a _flying_ city.

As the city cleared the distortion Alwyn began to really get a sense of just how big it was. Shaped vaguely like a snowflake the city was six and a half kilometres in diameter and just over one and a half kilometres tall from its base to the top of the largest of the towers that covered its upper surface. A softly glowing spherical force field surrounded the city as it settled into orbit meanwhile behind it more of the cruiser sized vessels and the smaller corvette-sized vessels appeared out of the distortion. Following them came another large ship – though its design was somewhat different to the others in that it was more curved, with lines that gave it a more oceanic feel than the blade-forms of the other ships. As the ship cleared the distortion it began to close, folding in upon itself and vanishing as if it had never been present at all as the structure of both normal space and subspace returned to normal.

Alwyn warily eyed the fleet of ships that had appeared in orbit. That they were the probes makers wasn't in doubt as the ships seemed to be constructed of the same unknown silver-white metallic alloy. However beyond that he couldn't tell anything about them as his ships subspace scanners vexingly refused point blank to establish any sort of lock upon the aliens. The beams from his scanners simply seemed to slide off them, clearly the aliens were using a stealth device similar to the stealth systems employed by the Minbari but an order of magnitude more advanced as Minbari stealth had no effect on subspace scan emissions, unlike the one the aliens were using.

Despite the irritation of not being able to scan the aliens in any real fashion Alwyn was able to tell a few things about them due to simple observation. It was immediately obvious that all but two of the vessels were warships – all the knife-like ships had multiple hatches that no doubt covered missile or fighter launch tubes, a great many turret-mounted cannons of various sizes spread all around their hulls, as well as fixed large cannons on central axis of each ship ranging in number from one cannon on the smallest to six on the massive vessel that was presumably the alien flagship. The sheer number of weapons arrays was surprising and more than a little concerning as even the smallest vessels seemed to mount far more weapons than comparable sized warships of other races in his experience. Which suggested to him that both the alien weapons weren't particularly powerful and they needed a lot of them to make up for that lack of power or the aliens had more advanced power sources that enabled them to run a truly frightening number of weapons. Given the advanced nature of the probe he was willing to bet that the latter was indeed the case.

His sensors abruptly chimed alerting him to the fact that the aliens were beginning to thoroughly sweep the surrounding area with a variety of different sensor systems ranging from simple ladar to multi-frequency subspace scans. Alwyn immediately felt his muscles tense as the scans swept ever closer to his ship and he prepared to cast one of his dragon spells as he doubted the aliens would be pleased to find him here spying on them. The scans swept over the space where his ship was concealing itself against the dark backdrop of space and Alwyn braced himself for detection.

Nothing happened.

Alwyn let out the breath he hadn't even realised he was holding as the ship confirmed that they'd not been detected, that the ships stealth system had deflected the beams around the ship as it was supposed to. For now as far as the alien fleet was concerned he was completely invisible to them, which was a relief as given how advanced they seemed to be it wasn't likely that one of his dragons would have distracted them from capturing or destroying his ship for more than a few seconds as their sensors would have certainly revealed the dragon's nature as a sophisticated but harmless holographic projection.

Movements among the alien fleet caught his attention and he observed how the warships were starting to spread out, fanning out into a perimeter while the city and the other ship slipped into orbit. Once in orbit the city orientated itself so its underside was facing down into the atmosphere before beginning a descent into a far lower, unsustainable orbit.

With a jolt of shock Alwyn realised that the city was actually planning to _land_ on the surface of the planet. _Incredible a city-sized spacecraft that can actually land on the surface of a planet and presumably take off again,_ he though in awe _who are these people? Why has the order never seen or heard anything of a race this powerful before?_

Feeling like a young apprentice again, newly inducted into the order and getting to see the awesome and terrifying forces the Technomages could bend to their will for the first time, Alwyn waited with baited breath to see what the aliens did next.

* * *

**Rivendell**

**A Short Time Earlier**

"Governor Shepherd."

Governor Alison Shepherd looked up from her contemplation of her terminal screen at the sound of Arwen's voice to see that the avatar was standing on the other side of her desk. "Yes Arwen," she asked.

"We've have just received some encouraging telemetry from one of the survey probes we deployed to locate a suitable emergency landing site for the city," Arwen answered. "The probe has discovered a suitable planet that appears to be uninhabited near the outer edge of the designated search grid."

"Which probe and how far away is this planet," Alison asked feeling hope beginning to stir within her. For the past several hours she'd been carefully going over the cities emergency evacuation plans and trying to adapt them to their current situation. Further diagnostics on the shield grid had confirmed that when the Pier Four emitters failed in another twenty-eight hours it would put an incredible amount stress on the rest of the shield grid as the other emitters would expand their shield segments automatically to maintain the integrity of the atmospheric bubble around the city. Stress that the grid wouldn't withstand for more than a few days, eventually more sections of the shields would fail and Rivendell and all a hundred and twenty thousand people on board would die.

While there were evacuation plans drawn up for a cityship should it find itself facing a danger it couldn't escape from none of them had ever been practiced in anything more than an academic fashion. And all had involved the use of the Stargate in one form or another, from people walking through or ferried through by gateship. A situation like the one they were currently in had simply been considered so absurd, so impossible that it had not even been researched as a theoretical contingency. To say it had been giving her a headache would have been an understatement. _Something our people will need to address if we ever find away of getting back home,_ she thought, _though maybe now I don't have to keep thinking and planning how we're going to pull off a full scale evacuation of the city without access to a gate network._

"L17 it's in a binary star system eighty-one point six light years from the fleet's current location," the A.I replied sounding as relieved as she felt, "all data indicates that the planet is a classic terra-class world. As I said the planet appears to be uninhabited. It should also be noted that the planet and both its moons are very rich in the minerals and ores we would require to sustain ourselves and build a new civilisation should it be determined that we are permanently stuck in this universe."

"It wouldn't matter if the materials weren't present at this point," Alison reminded Arwen. "Right now all that matters is the planet is habitable meaning we can land and repair the city. If the planet didn't have the materials we would need to survive long term we could have always moved the city again at a later date. The fact that it has them is merely a bonus."

"Indeed," Arwen said nodding in agreement knowing even more than Alison that they easily had enough refined trinium, naquada and neutronium in the cities storage silos to replace the power conduits damaged by their violent translocation to this universe.

"Has Admiral Robyns been informed of the discovery?"

"I forwarded a copy of the probes telemetry to the _Achilles_ the moment the initial analysis was completed," Arwen answered.

"A simple yes or no would have sufficed, Arwen," Alison replied with a smile. "Begin preparations for immediate departure."

"Yes, Governor Shepherd," Arwen acknowledged before the avatar disappeared as the A.I set to work preparing the cities weakened power systems for both the stress of hyperspace travel and landing.

Alison smiled before standing up from her desk and making her way out of her office and crossing the short distance to the cities operations centre. "Communications hail the _Achilles,_" she ordered.

"Aye ma'am," the officer operating the communications console acknowledged before mentally giving the command to his console. The response from the dreadnought was immediate. "Hail acknowledged, Admiral Robyns coming on the line now ma'am.

Alison nodded in acknowledgement a moment before a holographic communications screen blinked into existence in the air in front of her showing the face and upper torso of Admiral Jacob Robyns who from the people she could faintly see moving about in the background was in his command chair on the _Achilles _flag bridge. "Admiral," she said in greeting, "it appears that things are finally starting to look up for us."

"Indeed it does Governor Shepherd," Robyns agreed. "I've been looking over the probes telemetry it appears that this planet is a perfect landing site for Rivendell. Plenty of large bodies of water for the city to set down in and no sign of any current habitation so we won't be trespassing on someone else's turf."

"It does indeed appear to be a perfect site to land the city," Alison agreed, "and it also has the advantage of being very rich in the elements that our technology depends upon should our science teams determine that we are stuck in this universe."

"Yes. That being said I would feel happier sending an advanced scout force to do a thorough reconnaissance of the planet before we take the city there," Robyns said before frowning, "but I do not believe we really have the time to do that."

"You are correct admiral we don't have time for that," Alison replied, "we have just under twenty-eight hours remaining before the power conduits on Pier Four give up the ghost and we loose power to that section of the shield grid. While the emitters in surrounding sections will automatically compensate for the loss of Pier Four's emitters it will as you know drop the cities shield strength below the level required for a safe planetary landing.

"And to make matters worse loosing those emitters is going to put the rest of the shield grid under tremendous strain," Alison continued. "A strain that according to both Arwen and the cities engineers will be unsustainable for more than three days. After that we'll loose the shields and if they go while we're still in space..."

"...so does Rivendell and everyone on board," Robyns finished before sighing and looking down and resting his chin on the knuckles of one hand, obviously thinking. After a few moments of pregnant silence he looked up again. "We don't really have a choice do we."

"Not really no," Alison replied, "we need to land the city and we need to do it soon and this is the only suitable planet that our probes have so far found."

Robyns nodded in understanding. "Then we have no choice but to take the risk," he said, "have you begun departure preparations?"

"We have," Alison confirmed before glancing at the master systems display screen at the back of the operations centre, immediately noting that the hyperdrives that propelled the massive city-sized spacecraft through hyperspace were coming online. "The cities hyperdrives are powering up as we speak," she added looking back at the communications screen, "we will be able to depart for the planet within the next few minutes."

"Very well," the admiral replied before looking to side and giving an order to one of his crew then looking back at her, "I've just ordered the fleet to begin powering up hyperdrives and to plot a course to the planet. If you'll link your navigational systems with ours we'll make the jump as soon as the fleet is ready."

Alison nodded and looked over at one of the crew and nodded. The crewmen nodded in acknowledgement of the silent order and began manipulating his console while mentally liaising with Arwen to establish a link with the main navigational computer on the dreadnought. "We're setting the link up now," she said looking back at the admiral.

"Understood. Then let's get this done," Robyns replied, "good luck."

"To all of us admiral, to all of us," Alison answered with a smile. The admiral smiled back before breaking the comm. link from his end prompting the communications screen to vanish into nothingness with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble. "Okay people," she said turning to look at her crew, "you heard the admiral lets get this done. Status reports by station."

"Navigation ready, hyperdrives online and ready to engage."

"Life support ready."

"Engineering ready."

"Sensors ready."

"Communications ready."

"Arwen what's the status of the city?"

"All sections and systems are secure for the hyperspace transit and the commencement of landing procedures upon arrival, Governor," Arwen's voice responded from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "The fleet's hyperdrives are powering up and a course has been plotted to the system."

"Excellent. As soon as the _Achilles_ signals that the fleet is ready take us to the system," Alison ordered.

"As you wish," the A.I acknowledged as in concert with the navigational computer on the _Achilles_ she would control the length of time that the fleet's hyperdrives would remain active and at what speed they would propel them through hyperspace to their destination. After all while eighty-one point six light years would seem like an extremely long distance to an uneducated person Alison knew it was anything but to them. In fact it was quite a short distance that the fleet would cross in less than a minute with their hyperdrives running at full capacity. A human operator – even with the assistance of the neural interface – might not have been able to react in time to drop the fleet out of hyperspace precisely on target given how short the jump was going to be, a problem that Arwen with her vastly superior reaction time wouldn't have. _One of the benefits of having an A.I around to help,_ Alison thought a moment before a faint vibration began to be felt in the metal beneath her.

"Here we go," she said softly to herself as a faint but increasing humming sound joined the vibration as the cities engines came to their full power. In seconds the vibration gave way to a faint feeling of motion as the city and her escorts surged into hyperspace. A moment later though with a surge of deceleration that the inertial dampeners weren't quite able to completely cancel out the fleet returned to normal space. The sudden acceleration and deceleration produced a momentary but visible flicker in the cities artificial gravity field, a ripple that made people through the city stumble momentarily before stability returned.

"We are secure from hyperspace governor," navigation reported. "We're in a high orbit over the planet."

"Good, well done Arwen."

"Thank you, Governor Shepherd," the A.I responded sounding pleased at the praise.

"Sensors what is the rest of the fleet doing," Alison asked.

"They're moving away from us governor, deploying into a standard orbital formation," sensors reported.

"Governor we are receiving additional sensor telemetry from the probe," Arwen reported, "I believe we have a landing site located. It appears to be a large fresh water lake near the centre of the planets eastern continent. The lake is eight hundred and twenty miles long, four hundred and six point nine miles wide at its widest point and at the centre is one point four kilometres deep."

"That's a big lake," one of the two security marines in the operations centre commented.

"Practically an inland sea," Alison agreed. "A perfect place to land. Sensors scan the lake locate the best place to land the city, ideally sheltered."

"Yes ma'am," the sensor operator acknowledged hands dancing across her console. In response, silent invisible beams of energy reached out from the cityship, swept down through the planets atmosphere and carefully scanned the massive lake that probe L17 had located on its follow up surveying scans, searching for the ideal place in the lake to land Rivendell.

After a few moments of patience searching she found what she was looking for. "I have it ma'am," she reported, "its a large bay on the lakes north eastern shore, a large waterfall empties into it. At its widest point the bay is more than deep enough for the city to land and the current is quite weak."

"Excellent. Program to coordinates into the navigation system then commence landing sequence."

"Yes ma'am," came the response from the respective operators. A moment later a chiming sound echoed throughout the city as every terminal and intercom speaker came to life.

"Warning, warning, landing sequence initiated all personnel prepare for atmospheric entry," Arwen's voice said throughout the city, "atmosphere entry in one minute and twenty seconds. Repeat, landing sequence initiated, all personnel prepare for atmospheric entry, atmosphere entry in one minute and fifteen seconds."

* * *

As Arwen's voice echoed throughout Rivendell, prompting personnel to brace themselves for the normal turbulence of atmospheric entry, the city slowly began to move. Breaking the orbit it had previously maintained Rivendell descended into a lower orbit and dropped its speed down below the level needed to maintain such an orbit.

Seemingly in slow motion the gigantic snow-flake shaped spacecraft surrounded by the cocoon of its shields dropped lower and lower, eventually crossing the fuzzy boundary of the planets atmosphere. Immediately tenuous upper atmosphere ions began encountering the cities shields and vanished in momentary flares of flame as they were annihilated on contact with the coherent energy barrier making the shield glow softly.

The fiery glow increased as the city plunged deeper into the atmosphere and it got thicker and thicker around her. Glowing streams of superheated gasses raced across the shield spreading across the whole lower hemisphere of the shield even as more and more atmospheric atoms were annihilated on contact with the shield forming a seething, roaring sheath of plasma. And still the city descended its speed and angle being precisely adjusted as required by automated systems. To anyone watching it from the ground it would have seemed like a meteor was streaking towards them, trailing flames as the plasma sheath grew hotter and hotter, putting more and more stress on the city shields. Shields that despite the damage sustained during the transport from the cities home universe continued to handle the strain being placed on them by the plasma sheath.

The descent continued and the plasma sheath began to weaken and evaporate as the city entered thicker air. In moments the fire dissipated completely as the city continued its descent passing through the clouds. A shockwave of supersonic wind blasted through the atmosphere for hundreds of miles around the descending spacecraft. Wind that tore apart all the local weather patterns, blowing the tenuous clouds and even the odd thunder cloud apart as if they were nothing. Surface winds were whipped into a frenzy sending native fauna running in instinctual panic, not understanding or even comprehending what was really happening.

When barely a mile remained between the descending city and the ground Rivendell decelerated sharply coming to a hover over the surface of the part of the massive lake that was its chosen new home. Below the wind created by the cities passage through the atmosphere had whipped the formerly placid surface of the lake into a foaming, stormy frenzy. Giant ripples abruptly replaced the stormy waves as the downward force of the cities ventral anti-gravity thrusters disrupted the wave patterns producing the same effect that stones dropped in water would.

With a soft flash the ventral shields deactivated leaving nothing between the metal skin of the cities underside but air. Then with the grace of a descending snowflake in a gentle flurry the city once more began to descend. With a gentleness that would have seemed utterly unbelievable for its size Rivendell's underside made contact with the water sending out the smallest of splash waves as it did so.

Immediately the cities thrusters and engines shut down leaving it floating on the surface. The rest of the cities shields deactivated, exposing the whole city to the atmosphere of the new world for the first time. Throughout the vast city a down-scaling humming sound could be heard as the propulsion and inertial dampening systems powered down.

Rivendell had landed.

* * *

**Technomage Vessel**

**That Same Time**

Alwyn was sure that he was doing a very good impression of a cod-fish as his mouth hung open in astonishment at what he had just witnessed. He could barely believe that he had been right the city-sized spaceship had descended into the atmosphere and landed on the surface, choosing a wide sheltered bay on the shore of a massive inland lake as its landing site. The sheer knowledge of science and engineering needed for such an amazing feet was almost beyond his comprehension.

"Galen you would have loved to have seen this," he said softly to himself as he mentally shook himself back to awareness. Now that the city had landed he had a decision to make, whether to stay here and see if he could learn anymore about this powerful but very mysterious new race or he could withdraw for now, go see the Circle and inform them of this development as it would certainly be of great interest to them. Whether it would rouse enough curiosity from them to put their plans to find a hiding place on hold – at least for a time – he didn't know.

_Alternatively I could do both,_ he thought with a smile before making another hand gesture while speaking a spell. A moment later the ship gave a soft, almost imperceptible shudder as a small, stealth probe was launched towards the alien fleet. As long as the aliens didn't detect it he would be able to use it to watch these unknowns from a distance via electron incantation while he informed the Circle and some others like Galen about what had happened, the incredible things he had seen the unknowns do so far.

His decision made Alwyn began to guide his ship away from the planet, while he could jump into hyperspace from his current position it wouldn't exactly be very subtle as the aliens sensors would certainly immediately detect the jump point opening. To preserve the secrecy of his presence here he would take the ship to the edge of the system and use the outer most gas giant as a shield to hide his departure.

Once in the safety of hyperspace he would begin the journey to the place of power where the Circle met and present them with his ships recordings of what he had witnessed here today. He couldn't begin to guess how they would react to it all but he did know one thing…

…it was going to be interesting.


	5. Chapter 04

_**Stargate Thirdspace Version 2**_

Authors Notes: Sorry there has been such a massive delay with this chapter but my stargate muse has not been in the most cooperative mood over the last few months but has finally decided to cooperate. When I got down to it I found there was little that needed changing in this chapter beyond some minor tweaking though a few scenes have been extended and there is a new scene as well.

Also I would ask that people remember the Ori do not exist in this timeline and that the Asgard are still alive and well.

* * *

_**Chapter Four**_

**Asgard Vessel General O'Neil**

**Orilla, Ida Galaxy**

**A Few Days Later**

Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet, gave the small subtle Asgard equivalent of a smile as he studied the command centre of his new flagship with a profound sense of approval. The _General O'Neill_ – named in honour of the long dead Tau'ri officer who had been one of his closest and dearest friends – was only the second Hammond-class ship built by his people. Only the second ship in the entire history of the Asgard to be referred to as a dreadnought.

In many ways the Hammond-class represented a quantum leap forward in Asgard starship technology. Not only were they over twice the size of the O'Neill-class battlecruisers that were the current mainstay of his people's mighty starfleet they were superior in every respect. The engines, shields, weapons systems and sensors were the pinnacle of current Asgard engineering and were only possible due to a technological secret that their allies in the Tau'ri Federation had shared with them soon after they'd figured it out themselves. The secret of creating the cleanest, most efficient power source in the known universe: the zero point module.

That one technology had, coupled with the solution to there cloning problems found in the Alteran database in Atlantis, changed everything for the Asgard race. No longer threatened with a slow extinction due to their ancestors own impatience with evolution the Asgard had once again begun to expand, reclaiming the power and glories that had been lost to them during the long war with the mechanical menace of the Replicators. Reclaiming and even in some cases surpassing the glories of their ancestors as they showed to themselves and the populations of local galaxies that they still deserved to be considered one of the most powerful races to have ever existed in this part of the universe.

It hadn't been an easy road to recovery. Not only had they had to rebuild a galaxy ravaged by decades of open war with the Replicators but they had later had to contend with the actions of some of their own kind in the Pegasus Galaxy. Thor inwardly grimaced – in a subtle Asgard fashion – as he recalled how the Asgard had learned that the long lost Vanir tribe were in fact still alive but that they had settled in the Pegasus Galaxy during the Ancients war with the Wraith. And used the cover of that war to carry out experiments on the denizens of the Pegasus Galaxy, experiments that they'd continued even after the Wraith defeated the Ancients and destroyed their intergalactic capable ships. They learned of both when the Vanir reappeared after millennia of silence and tried to use the Attero Device to wipe out the Wraith, uncaring of the devices side effect of making Stargates explode and the effect those explosions would have on the human populations of that galaxy. When the Tau'ri stopped them the Asgard High Council had decided that despite their own weakness they had a moral obligation to deal with their wayward brethren before in their selfishness they endangered innocent lives again.

For the first time in uncounted millennia the two tribes of the Asgard had engaged one another in battle after the Vanir leadership refused to both acknowledge the High Council still had authority over them and the order to cease their actions. Though the Vanir had been defeated quickly – the old model attack ships and outdated plasma weapons they'd been armed with being no match for the far more advanced O'Neill-class battlecruisers and the ion and tri-phase plasma beam weapons they carried – their actions had brought deep shame to the Asgard and made many of the human worlds in Pegasus weary of them even after they assisted the Tau'ri in defeating the Wraith and driving the vampiric race into extinction. A weariness that it had taken centuries to fully overcome.

Thor was brought out of his memories when he felt something brush against his mind. Something insubstantial but undeniably powerful. A moment later the feeling came again and this time a voice spoke inside his head, a voice he hadn't heard in centuries in anything other than historical documentaries on the Tau'ri Starnet. _"Thor,"_ the voice said with a hint of urgency. _"Thor we need to talk privately. Can you come to your chambers please?"_

Surprised and concerned by 'hearing' a voice he hadn't heard in person in generations Thor immediately did as requested. A quick command to the ships internal transporters had him vanishing from where he'd been standing on the bridge and reappearing in his personal chambers in a flash of silver-white light. As the transporter beam released him Thor found himself face to face with someone he hadn't seen in centuries.

Doctor Daniel Jackson stood in front of him; looking just like the young man he had been all those centuries ago. He was dressed in a cream-coloured pair of pants and a white jumper with only the faint silver-white glow around him giving a hint that the being in front of him wasn't a physical presence but was in fact the ascended form of his old friend.

"Doctor Jackson this is a most pleasant surprise," Thor said in greeting as he moved to one of the normal throne-like Asgard chairs and sat down.

"Hello Thor it is good to see you again," Daniel replied with a warm smile before turning serious. "Unfortunately as much as I would like it to be this isn't a social call."

"Given the urgency in your telepathic message I would be surprised if it was," Thor answered slipping into the fashion of talking to a Tau'ri – even one who hadn't had a corporeal body for a few centuries – with ease born of long practice. "What is it you wish to speak with me about?"

"You are aware that a cityship with escorts was sent to dark matter galaxy a few weeks ago?"

"I am aware of Rivendell's mission yes," Thor replied with a puzzled frown wondering what Rivendell had to do with this surprise visit. "As far as I am aware there has been no contact from them since."

"That is correct," Daniel confirmed. "In fact as we speak federal military officials are already assembling a fleet of warships to try and find out what happened to them and the exploration vessel _Northern Horizon_. I have a request for you from the others they would like the Asgard to accompany them." Had he had eyebrows Thor's would have shot up in surprise at that, it was incredibly rare for the ascended Alterans to ask anything from their old Asgard allies. In fact as far as Thor could recall it was unprecedented.

"May I ask why?"

"You may," Daniel replied, "shortly after Rivendell, her escort and the _Northern Horizon_ entered the dark matter galaxy something happened that for a brief moment in time shattered subspace across multiple spatial domains. We sensed it immediately as to us the shatter felt like an earthquake would to you, however we have been too busy repairing the damage it caused to the very fabric of this universe to determine exactly what caused the disruption in the first place. All we know is it originated in a system a few dozen light years inside the perimeter of the galaxy."

"You want us to investigate what caused it?"

"If you can yes. If subspace was shattered there once it could potentially happen again. If it happens again then the damage it could do to the fabric of the universe could be even worse." Daniel replied. "We need to know if it was a one off occurrence or if there is somekind of problem there that could potentially cause a recurrence of the disruption wave. If there is a problem there we need to know so we can counter it, the universe exists on a delicate balance of different forces on multiple spatial and quantum planes. It cannot weather many more disruptions if too many occurred it could prove to be disastrous."

"It is that serious?"

"Yes, Thor it is. It could cause a rupture in the very fabric of the universe, quantum dimensions and subspace domains that are kept separate would begin bleeding into one another and not even the others know what the long term consequences of such an event would be. All we know is that it would not be a good thing for anyone in this part of the universe no matter what plane of existence they reside upon."

"I see. Very well I will speak with the High Council immediately," Thor replied. "As soon as they are informed of the potential seriousness of the situation I have no doubt they will release ships to investigate the cause of this shattering of subspace that you speak of."

Daniel smiled. "Thank you, Thor," he said before blinking. "I've entered the coordinates of the origin of the disruption wave into your ships navigational computer. I will let the others know. One more thing when you go to that galaxy please be careful. I sense a malevolence there, a darkness greater than anything I have ever felt, watch yourselves when you go there."

"I will," Thor replied, feeling a chill go down his spine at that. He didn't like the sound of that at all. "I will keep an eye on the Tau'ri, even though they are more than capable of looking after themselves these days."

"That's all I can ask, Thor. Thank you," Daniel said his voice turning ethereal as he began to glow more brightly. In moments he had become nothing more than a glowing tentacle mass of pure energy and light. For a moment more he remained there then faded away as if he had never been present at all.

Thor sat there in his chair looking at the place where his old friend had been, mentally going over what Daniel had told him and growing more concerned by it by the minute. Then he pressed a control on the sides of his chair, opening a communications link to the bridge.

"Connect me to the High Council immediately," he ordered. "I must speak with them about a matter of the utmost urgency."

"Yes, commander. Please stand by."

* * *

Invisibly Daniel watched Thor begin speaking to his superiors in the Asgard High Council about what he'd told him. He wished he had been able to be more open with Thor about the threat to all life that lurked in the dark matter galaxy but the others had forbidden it. Hence why he couldn't warn openly about the Sinhindrea – a species whose evil made even the Goa'uld System Lords at their worst seem like saints – but had to be cryptic about it.

After a few moments of observation he sensed a familiar presence behind him before a insubstantial hand touched his equally insubstantial shoulder. "You did well there," Ganos Lal said from behind him, "I know that cannot have been easy."

"It wasn't," Daniel admitted looking over at the other ascended being. "I wish I could have been more open with Thor about the dangers that exist in that dark place."

"I know but you know as well as I that the others would have never allowed it."

"I know but this just feels wrong, Ganos. I know we need to find out what caused that disruption wave but we're going to cause a war between my former people, the Asgard and the Sinhindrea by not telling them about the enemy waiting to challenge them."

"A war that would have come eventually anyway," Ganos reminded him, "the Sinhindrea are only a few years away from developing intergalactic hyperspace technology and the encounter with Rivendell will have only increased their determination to unlock those secrets. It is better that they are dealt with now when they are still confined to their home galaxy than when they fall on the rest of the universe like a swarm of hungry locusts."

Daniel sighed. "I know," he replied. "But as Jack would have said 'this still stinks'."

"I understand. If it makes you feel any better as the war goes on we should get more than one chance to help them, covertly of course."

"Of course," Daniel agreed sighing again. "I just get fed up of having to be so cryptic in dealing with the lower planes all the time. Damned others."

Ganos chuckled at the familiar frustration she saw in Daniel. Though he had made some progress in getting the others to in his words 'lighten up a bit' since his last ascension they was still an uphill battle getting them to completely change their ways. Seeing his determination to fight that battle to the end was what had endeared him to her and even got her and Moros to see past their lingering political differences and join his campaign.

"We should go," she reminded him, "the others will notice if we linger around here on the lower planes much longer even though they're distracted with the repair work. Plus I believe they're doing steak at the diner tonight."

Daniel chuckled. "Can't miss that," he agreed though it wasn't really necessary for ascended beings to eat or drink they all preferred to do so even if the food and drink wasn't real and had no effects on them. It had been interesting to rediscover that and it had been amusing to him to find the ascended liked to hang out at a recreation of an American diner and recreate authentic foods – from what Janus told him he'd apparently introduced that to the diner idea the first time he'd ascended and they'd loved it. Next to a recreation of a Roman bathhouse it had become of most ascended favourite hang out places.

"So shall we go," Ganos asked.

"Yes," Daniel replied taking one last look at Thor who was finishing up his meeting with the High Council. Ganos joined him before they took a look at one another then reverted to their energy forms and making the journey back to the ascended planes.

* * *

**Starbase 232 **

**Makora System, Tau'ri Federation **

**Three Days Later**

Admiral Helena Hawkins materialised aboard Starbase 232 with a puzzled frown on her face. She had been on board her flagship, the _Repulse_, overseeing the final preparations for her fleet's deployment when the starbase had hailed them and requested she transport aboard immediately. Her fleet the 4th Fleet was being sent to the recently discovered dark matter galaxy that Rivendell had been heading for to investigate what had happened to the cityship. There had been no response to any attempts to contact Rivendell, the _Northern Horizon _or any of the cityships escort, even the mighty _Achilles_ remained as silent as a ghost.

The ominous silence had both the Senate and Defence Force Command very, very worried. So worried that they'd decided to send the fourth as a recon in force to investigate what had happened and determine the cityships fate. Helena had just finished a major meeting with her fleet commanders when they had been hailed; Admiral Mitchell was requesting her presence over here on the space station on an undisclosed but urgent manner.

_I wonder what this is about,_ Helena thought as she made her way through the corridors of the space station towards Admiral Mitchell's office. Having been to Starbase 232 on many occasions in the past she knew the way like the back of her hand. As she walked Helena thought about her mission, and what could explain the terrifying silence on subspace communication bands. It was possible that the colony fleet was intact and just couldn't get in contact with them through some form of interference, that had been known to happen under certain conditions and even now their was still so much they didn't know about how dark matter behaved – especially in such quantities. Equally the fleet could have met tragedy, encountering some kind of interstellar calamity that had destroyed them, equally they could have been attacked by an unknown race and either destroyed of captured.

Of all the possibilities Helena hoped that it was not going to be the last one, if Rivendell had been destroyed or captured then she knew it could lead to war. In total there had been nearly a hundred and thirty five thousand people in that task force between Rivendell and the starship crews; if they were all dead then the Senate and the public in general would go absolutely berserk. The entire Federation and all the races aligned to it would be enraged making war inevitable. Like many in the Defence Force Helena didn't want there to be a war, she knew just how terribly powerful modern weapons were, but she would not be afraid of it if it came.

With effort Helena shook off her increasingly dark thoughts as she arrived at Admiral Mitchell's office, or rather the small antechamber before the office. The young lieutenant on duty there looked up at the sound of her footsteps on the deck.

"**Can we help you, admiral,"** the lieutenant asked in a deep, distorted voice that indicated that a symbiote was speaking. Helena immediately knew the lieutenant would have to be a Tok'ra; the Goa'uld no longer existed after all having been exterminated centuries ago though the Tok'ra numbers were growing, especially since the young Queen Terayac had defected to them from the Goa'uld. Bringing with her the knowledge that had finally exterminated what had remained of the System Lords. Still hearing the distorted voice creeped Helena out a bit, though she was used to dealing with Tok'ra having worked with them many times over the last few years.

"Yes, I'm here to see Admiral Mitchell. He sent for me," Helena replied not letting any sign of her unease at the odd voice of the symbiote show on her face.

"Admiral Hawkins," the lieutenant asked in a normal voice this time as the host spoke. Helena nodded. The lieutenant smiled. "Go on in their waiting for you."

"Thank you," Helena replied easing past the desk and going to the office door, before disappearing inside. The lieutenant watched her go, before inwardly speaking to his symbiote.

"_You really shouldn't do that Seresh you tend to creep a lot of people out,"_ he said.

"_**Oh come on, Jason. What's the harm in me speaking from time to time,"**_ Seresh replied sounded a little peeved. _**"I do have opinions and feelings and it's not right you have to speak for us both all the time. Its not my fault people get uncomfortable hearing me, people should be a bit more open minded."**_

"_You can't blame them really, given that beings similar to you dominated this galaxy like an evil plague for thousand of years. Though the Goa'uld have been gone for centuries – and good bloody riddance – that's going to spawn very long memories that are going to take at least a thousand years to completely fade away if they ever do."_ A soft resigned sigh filtered through Jason's mind.

"_**I guess your right. I'm sorry you're my first host and we've only been bonded for a few years, I'm still not used to the fact that other humans – outside your family – sometimes get uncomfortable with me. I just wish things were easier and I could talk more often without creeping others out."**_

"_I know, Seresh. I know,"_ Jason replied before returning to his duties as Admiral Mitchell's adjutant.

* * *

Helena stepped into Admiral Jordan Mitchell's office and immediately got a surprise. She wasn't surprised to see Admiral Mitchell's waiting for her but she was surprised to see that there was an Asgard in the room with him. An Asgard that she recognised as being Odin the Asgard ambassador to Earth, the fact that he was out here on this station, twenty thousand light years from Earth, was very surprising.

"Ah Admiral Hawkins welcome," Mitchell said noticing her. "Please be seated. I am sure you are wondering why I sent for you."

"The thought had crossed my mind, sir," Helena replied as she sat down. Though they had the same rank, Mitchell was her direct superior as he was in charge of all fleet activity in this quadrant of the Milky Way.

"I asked to see you because your mission is far more critical than you realise," Mitchell replied. "You will have some additional reinforcements besides your own ships; the Asgard second fleet under the direct authority of Supreme Commander Thor himself is coming to join up with you. They will be going with you."

Helena blinked startled, it was highly unusual for the Asgard to send large fleets anywhere, even though their numbers were growing and they were no longer faced with the possibility of extinction.

"May I ask what is going on, sir?"

"Ambassador Odin can explain," Mitchell replied, gesturing to Odin. Odin inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Greetings Admiral Hawkins," Odin said in greeting.

"Ambassador," Helena replied politely. "What's this about?"

"A matter of the gravest urgency," Odin reported. "Three of your days ago Supreme Commander Thor was contacted by Daniel Jackson representing the ascended Ancients."

Helena's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Why would the ascended form of Daniel Jackson go and see Thor? It definitely wouldn't be for a touch of nostalgic conversation. It had to be related to where here fleet was going, but why? Were the Ancients going to be getting involved with the search? If they were then what was going on? What was so important that they were willing to break their own rules about interference with lower planes of existence? Was it related to Rivendell's ominous silence? The questions echoed through her mind. She looked carefully at Odin, hoping that the Asgard would have the answers to her questions.

"Please continue," Helena said. Odin inclined his head slightly.

"So that you may understand the seriousness of the situation I will now show the recording taken aboard Thor's new flagship," Odin said manipulating the controls built into the sides of his Asgard style chair, which had established a remote link with the stations main computer.

The lights in the room dimmed slightly and a holographic screen coalesced into existence over the desk that they were all sat around. Helena focused her attention on the screen which showed an unfamiliar chamber on what was clearly an Asgard vessel, the décor and style of construction made that obvious. In the room were Thor sitting in a chair and a man that Helena recognised from history files as being Daniel Jackson stood nearby, clad in the white clothing that ascended beings favoured when dealing with lower planes of existence.

Helena listened intently and with growing concern as Daniel and Thor conversed about subspace shattering and threats to the very fabric of the universe. Though she didn't understand what he meant by the universe being a delicate balance of forces that could be threatened by this possible rupture, she could tell Daniel was very worried by it, reflecting the fears of the Ancients themselves. Anything that could worry the Ancients so much that they would take the unprecedented step of directly asking the Asgard for assistance was a cause of immense concern.

Her concern only grew when she heard Daniel's veiled warning to Thor. The words about a dark, malevolence being present in the galaxy Rivendell had been sent to filled her with profound apprehension. It made it all the more apparent to Helena that they needed to determine Rivendell's fate, especially if it was somehow linked to the brief shattering of subspace Daniel had spoken of.

On the holographic screen Helena observed Daniel revert to the energy state that was now his natural form before fading away. Then the recording ended and the hologram evaporated into nothingness and the illumination in the office returned to full strength. For a few moments there was silence in the office as everyone digested to contents of the recording, though both Odin and Mitchell had seen it before.

"Well, admiral what's your impression," Mitchell said at last breaking the silence.

Helena considered for a few moments before answering. "Worrying sir," she said. "Anything that has the Ancients so worried that they would make such an unprecedented request is a cause for immense concern. I can't help wondering though if this subspace shattering that Daniel spoke of is related to Rivendell's lack of communication."

"That possibility has occurred to command," Mitchell agreed. "I did so as soon as soon as the Asgard first showed us this recording. It is imperative that we find out what happened to Rivendell and what caused this subspace shattering."

"Since our goals are almost identical," Odin added. "We agreed that this mission should be a joint one. The fleet we have assembled will depart orbit of Orilla and arrive here within the hour."

"Can the fourth fleet be ready to depart in that time," Mitchell asked. Helena considered for a few moments.

"Yes, sir we can. All supplies have already been loaded aboard and all ships are fully operational. We're just waiting for the last group of crew to come back from leave on the planet this station orbits. They should be transporting up in the next twenty minutes or so."

"Excellent," Mitchell replied.

"Once the Asgard ships arrive and have formed up we can leave," Helena added.

"Excellent. Well I am sure you would like to get back to the _Repulse_ and see to the fleet's final preparations," Mitchell said.

"Yes, sir," Helena replied, realising that the meeting was over. Admiral Mitchell smiled.

"I will see that amended orders are sent to your ship, to reflect the joint mission. You are dismissed, Admiral," Mitchell answered. "Good luck on your mission."

"Thank you, sir," Helena acknowledged with a smile before standing up, she gave a polite nod to the Asgard ambassador then left the room to go to a section where she could transport back to the _Repulse,_ a section outside the range of the transporter beam suppressor field that covered the vital facilities in the stations core.

As she walked Helena was once again lost in thought, thinking about what she had just learned. _Whatever is going on in that dark matter galaxy I'll get to the bottom of it,_ she thought, _I have to._

* * *

**TFS Repulse **

**A Short Time Later**

Admiral Helena Hawkins sat in her ready room and smiled as she read the last system status report that had just been delivered to her. Finally everything was ready, the last of the crewmen had returned from the planet and every system on the five hundred Tau'ri or Tau'ri allied ships of her fleet was ready to go. _Excellent,_ she thought, _as soon as the Asgard fleet arrives we'll be able to get underway._

The soft chime of the desk intercom startled her and Helena reached out and pressed the offending device. "Yes," she asked. A holographic screen appeared in the air in front of her showing the face and torso of her flagships commanding officer, Captain Timothy Baker.

"Sorry to disturb you, admiral," Tim said. "But our long range scanners have picked up the Asgard fleet approaching. They should be dropping out of hyperspace in the next few minutes."

"I see. Thank you, captain," Helena replied. "Signal the fleet to break orbit and form up. As soon as the Asgard fleet arrives they will be joining formation with us. Then we can get underway. I'll be on the flag bridge shortly."

"Aye, ma'am," Tim replied. Helena pressed a button on her intercom control panel and the holographic screen vanished. Helena smiled softly and stood up, it was almost time to get this show on the road, and she could feel excitement stirring in hair veins. She couldn't help but feel it though she knew they would be flying into a potentially very dangerous and unknown situation. _I just hope things are not as bad as everyone fears,_ she thought as she left her quarters for the _Repulse_ flag bridge.

* * *

It took only a few moments for Helena to reach the flag bridge from her ready room, the two marines at the entrance snapped to attention as she entered. Helena nodded to them politely and moved to her command chair.

"What's the position of the Asgard fleet now," Helena asked as she sat down.

"The Asgard fleet has just entered the system, ma'am," Ensign Stewart at sensors reported. "They will be dropping from hyperspace in approximately thirty seconds."

"Show me," Helena ordered, looking at the high resolution screens at the front of the flag bridge. The screens came on immediately and showed a normal star field, veiled here and there by ribbons of multicoloured nebula gasses.

For a moment the star field remained unchanging, eternal as it always did. Then a hyperspace window burst into existence, spilling light and energy into normal space, a moment before it disgorged the Asgard fleet. A fleet that while much smaller than the one Helena commanded was still a source of awe and respect, for it was a fleet whose strength and power was undoubted, a fleet who could strike terror into the hearts of anyone foolish enough to make an enemy out of the mighty Asgard.

The fleet consisted of forty O'Neill-class battlecruisers each escorted by two of the older but still formidable Beliskner-class cruisers, which were powerful warships in their own rights though they lacked the firepower of the bigger O'Neill's. But it was the ship leading the Asgard fleet that really caught Helena's attention, it was over twice the size of the O'Neill battlecruisers and while the design was similar they were a great many subtle differences in the design. The power readings the ship was producing were much higher than what was regularly attributed to Asgard vessels and Helena knew that that meant the ship wasn't being powered by the Asgard normal neutron ion generators, though it would have them. Instead it was being powered by the zero point module technology her people had shared with the Asgard.

It took Helena only a few moments to recognise the vessel as one of the Asgards new Hammond-class dreadnoughts. Hovering close to the dreadnought in escort positions were another four Beliskner-class ships, which were utterly dwarfed by the new vessel. She had been briefed on the Hammond-class but hadn't really appreciated them until now when she actually saw one, though it was still smaller than her own Proteus-class dreadnought.

"Admiral the Asgard flagship is hailing us," Lieutenant Taylor reported from the communications station.

"Put them through," Helena replied, already knowing who the Asgard ships commander would be.

"Aye ma'am," Taylor responded and mentally ordered his console to put the signal onto the main screens.

Immediately the few of the intimidating wall of Asgard warships vanished to replaced by the face of an Asgard sitting in one of their distinctive chairs, back dropped by the glowing column of energy that was the distinctive feature of an Asgard bridge. The Asgard was immediately familiar to everyone on the flag bridge; most Tau'ri would recognise him though few had ever actually met him in person.

"Greetings I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet," Thor said. "Are you Admiral Hawkins?"

"Yes, Thor I am," Helena replied. "A pleasure to meet you at last."

"Likewise, admiral. My sensors show that your ships are fully prepared to begin the journey to the dark matter galaxy," Thor answered.

"Yes, Thor we are. Since we are both ready to depart then I suggest we form up without delay and get underway," Helena said. "Given the gravity of the situation we cannot afford to sit around wasting time."

"Indeed you are correct," Thor replied, not sounding surprised that she knew the true gravity of the situation. Thor had been informed by the High Council that Ambassador Odin would show the security recording of his conversation with Daniel Jackson to the admiral who would command the Tau'ri fleet. "Let us form up and get underway," Thor continued. "Once that has been done we can begin detailed planning for the mission."

"Agreed. I will contact you as soon as we are underway, Thor." Thor nodded in agreement and broke the connection from his end. The view of the Asgard fleet returned, only now the wall of ships was breaking up as the Asgard vessels moved to join the formation established by the one hundred and thirty-five ships of the forth fleet.

"Admiral the Asgard ships are moving to join formation with us," Ensign Stewart reported, though he knew it was unnecessary, but protocol demanded it.

"Thank you, ensign," Helena answered acknowledging the report, even as she leaned back in her chair to wait for formation to be established so they could leave this system and get the mission underway.

* * *

**Observation Deck **

**Starbase 232 **

**A Short Time Later**

Admiral Jordan Mitchell stood besides Odin looking out through the huge transparent window that made up one wall of the room, at the assemble fleet. Combined the 4th fleet and Thor's fleet was truly a sight to behold, their gleaming marshal strength representing power on a scale that few forces in this part of the universe could match. _Any moment now they will jump to hyperspace,_ he thought waiting patiently. The spectacle of seeing two hundred and sixty warships all entering hyperspace was both a rare and awe inspiring one.

Finally after a few more moments the waiting game was over. A massive hyperspace window burst into existence ahead of the assembled ships as they combined the subspace fields generated by their hyperdrives. For a moment more nothing happened, then the first wave of ships surged forward, seemed to stretch before disappearing into the window. The second wave followed them into hyperspace immediately. In the space of less than one and a half minutes the whole fleet vanished into hyperspace and the window folded closed, vanishing as if it had never been.

Admiral Mitchell continued to watch the place where the ships had disappeared from normal space for a few moments.

"Do you think they will find the answers to what is going on in that galaxy, Odin," he asked the Asgard ambassador. "What's happened to Rivendell and if it's related to this subspace shattering Daniel spoke of."

"We have to hope that they can, admiral," Odin replied. "Though my peoples understanding of subspace and the structure of the universe is not as advanced as the Ancients, our scientists have confirmed that large scale subspace shattering would be an incredibly dangerous and destructive phenomenon."

Mitchell nodded. "We checked the database in Atlantis for information on subspace shattering," he said. "There wasn't much information there but it did give frightening accounts of occasions when the Alterans encountered similar destructive subspace phenomena."

"We are aware of some of them," Odin agreed, inwardly shivering as he recalled reading those files, they had been included with the message from the High Council. "The only thing we can do, admiral is wait. Wait and hope that the crews of those ships can find us some answers. Unfortunately I cannot stay here to wait for those answers to come; I must return to Earth immediately, there are diplomatic matters that require my attention."

"Of course," Mitchell replied. "I'll arrange for you to be transported down to the Stargate on the planet below."

Odin inclined his head slightly. "Thank you, admiral."

Mitchell took a long last look out the view port at the space where the fleet's hyperspace window had been. _Good luck out there,_ he thought to the departed ships, wishing they could hear him. He had a feeling that they were going to need all the luck they could get. Then he turned around and left, leaving Odin alone gazing out at the stars while he waited to be transported down to the planet for his return to Earth.


End file.
